


Liberate Tutemet Ex Inferis (Save yourself from hell)

by Queerily_kai, Terrenis



Series: Movie AU's [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Event Horizon (1997)
Genre: Accidental Movie References, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Horror, Alternate Universe - Space, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Author is a Space Nerd, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America Big Bang 2018 | cabigbang, Clint's Potty Mouth, Elder God, Established Relationship, Everyone is so done with that shit, F/F, F/M, Going to Hell, Happy Reading, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Mind Horror, Multi, Nat and Clint have a weird relationship, Polyamory, Possession, Space Flight, Team as Family, The Author Regrets Nothing, The Event Horizon is the Mary Celeste of Spaceships, lots of swearing, movie science, space is cool, the gang up in space, tw: blood and gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-25 15:49:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 19
Words: 55,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16200674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerily_kai/pseuds/Queerily_kai, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terrenis/pseuds/Terrenis
Summary: In the Year 2060, Stark Aeronautics and Space Administration's prestige project, the “Event Horizon”, was on its maiden voyage with the newly developed Arc Reactor Gravity Drive, only to disappear beyond Neptune’s orbit without a trace.Now, seven years later, a transmission from the eighth planet is received, along with a very disturbing audio record.Tony Stark, who not only wants to redeem his reputation, but also needs to know what happened on the ship, goes on a mission with the enhanced Inhuman ragtag crew of the Singularity to salvage his baby.Little do they know that this is literally going to be a trip to hell…Or that totally unnecessary Event Horizon AU that no one asked for. But I’m going to write it anyway.





	1. Prologue - A short history of the future

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my project for the Captain America Big Bang 2018, hosted by the lovely mods over there at  
> [cabigbang](https://cabigbang.tumblr.com).  
> I've had the honour to work with the amazing Kyle (Check out his [Tumblr](https://kaiwrites.tumblr.com) and his writings here on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queerily_kai/pseuds/Queerily_kai)). 
> 
> Also Kudos to my lovely beta Stephanie aka River_Tam. Thank you so much for your help.
> 
> I'm going to post regularly until October 21th, my final posting day.
> 
> I hope you are all buckled up, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.
> 
> Happy Reading!

****  


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**2020**

Mankind makes a big step in colonizing space.

**2023**

The European Union establishes the first permanent colony on the Moon, claiming two thirds of the colony as their own territory with the remaining third being interplanetary embassy space.

**2025**

As a result of the EU’s successful colonizing attempt, a vote is passed to privatize NASA. It becomes part of Stark Industries under its CEO, Howard Stark, Jr., and is renamed Stark Aeronautics and Space Administration (SASA). Peggy Carter, SHIELD’s former Vice Director, becomes the first Director of SASA.

**2030**

After too many malfunctions, the ISS is classified as too unsafe for further use and finally decommissioned. Its successor, the Stark Space Station (SSS), is the first fully functional and self-sustaining city in orbit around the Earth.

**2036**

The small but technologically advanced country of Wakanda builds the first colony beyond the Inner Solar System. The Ceres Station is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter on the dwarf planet with the same name, a popular interplanetary intermediate stop-to-be.

**2037**

Ongoing conflicts between humans and inhumans (enhanced and gifted humans) culminate in the Inhuman Civil War, which rages on through every country and continent. In the end, the United Nations is abolished and the world is divided in seven factions - each of them an conglomeration of several countries and continents - forming a World Council:

  * African – Western Asia Federation (AWAF)
  * Caribbean - American Territories (CAT; does not include Canada and Alaska, but includes the former USA, Cuba, the Antilles and so on)
  * Canadian – Alaskan – Arctic Coalition (CAAC)
  * Eurasian Union (EAU; European Countries + its intercontinental Countries)
  * Russasia (RA; Russia + the rest of Asia, except for Korea and Japan)
  * Transpacific – Transantarctic Confederation (TPTAC; Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, South Sea, Hawaii, Middle and South America, Antarctica)
  * Wakanda (WAK) 



**2042**

The first settlement on Mars starts with terraforming as well as mining for resources. More settlements follow, mostly inhabited by inhumans, since their bodies adapt quicker to Mars’ extreme environmental conditions. As the red planet becomes more and more habitable, it also gets clearer that the World Council is way too interested in the Planet’s resources, whereupon Mars declares its independence from Earth.

**2060**

Pepper Potts-Stark becomes new CEO of the Stark Space-Administration.

Her husband Tony Stark, Howard Stark Jr.'s son and his successor, develops a new type of propulsion drive for quick interplanetary and interstellar travel. The brand-new research vessel _Event Horizon_ under the command of Captain Alexander Pierce, leaves the Stark Space Station on her maiden voyage to test the new experimental drive, but disappears without a trace beyond Neptune's orbit.

 **2067**  

Now...

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	2. Prelude: Reemerging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something appears in Neptune's orbit.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

The Outer Solar System was an immeasurable cluster of stars, asteroids, comets and other cosmic objects. This far from the center, the System’s central star was all but a tiny dot with just a fraction of its warmth and luminosity.

The only thing standing out from the eternal darkness of the void was the glowing sphere the colour of the deep blue sea. This particular hue was given to the wandering star as a result of the absorption of red light by methane in the atmosphere of the otherwise typical gas planet mixture of helium, hydrogen, rock and ice.

Eighth planet of the Solar System and farthest from the Central Star; fourth largest, third most massive and densest planet of the Gas Giants; orbiting the Sun at a distance of 4.5 billion km in about 165 years and named after the Roman god of the sea.

Neptune was a sight to behold. 

Although his average temperature ranged between -201° and -218° C (that’s why he was an Ice Giant with Uranus being the second planet of this type), his sea-blue atmosphere was surprisingly tempestuous. The storms in those darker blue clouds could reach a peak velocity up to 2000 kilometers per hour. The biggest one was a beautiful, rich blue vortex called “The New Great Dark Spot” - a wink to Jupiter’s “Great Red Spot”, which had been one of the longest-lasting storms for several hundred years before finally disappearing.

Suddenly, something was shifting within the NGDS. The dark blue colour in the middle of the storm darkened visibly, until it took on such a pitch blackness that no light dared to escape that darkness. Bright white lightning bolts started to spread outwards from the middle of the darkness to the outermost atmospheric layer, much like a delicate and complicated designed spiderweb, before it spat out a tiny object. Only then, the dark got mixed up with the original colour of the storm, whirling in a maelstrom of the universe's mightiest powers, until the spot returned to its original colour.

The tiny silhouette of the object became bigger and bigger, making its way out of the gaseous atmosphere and closer to the dainty, shimmering arcs that surrounded the planet.

It was not a cosmic object, but a man-made vessel, which had clearly seen better days. The hull of this endless maze made of metal looked dark and hollow without its lights on and was utterly lost against Neptune’s huge silhouette. As the spacecraft swerved back and forth on its shaky orbit, fighting against the planet’s tidal forces, a shred of sun illuminated eleven large letters spelling out a name on the hull, right before the darkness of Neptune’s shadow swallowed the ship completely.

_ EVENT HORIZON. _

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	3. A signal from afar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A strange signal is received. Actions are taken.

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Wakandan Ceres Station, Asteroid Belt

 

Scott was bored.

Night watches in the surveillance room of Wakanda’s interplanetary base in a crater of the largest minor planet in the asteroid belt tended to do that to him, even though the average Cererian Night barely lasted four and a half hours. 

Still, all being by himself wasn't that great, when he was only surrounded by two holographic screens, two workstations and 30 centimeter thick vibranium walls that ensured he and his co-workers weren't being sucked out into the black void out there.

Sure, he loved his job, watching the base’s surroundings and communication channels for signals and sources of possible danger like asteroids and other cosmic objects, which occasionally passed or hit the minor planet. And the amenities, like free food, entertainment, vacation and healthcare, weren't to be scoffed at.

No, the source for Scott's current mood was the fact that he terribly missed his little darling girl and his girlfriend back home on Earth and that he had to wait three more weeks until his vacation. Not Cererian weeks, but Earth Standard Weeks. Which meant waiting for almost seven Cererian Standard Weeks, since a day here on Ceres only lasted a little bit about 9 hours.

Stupid interplanetary objects and their abnormal orbits.  

Scott groaned and leaving himself fall back into his wheeling chair, pushing a small button, before spinning himself around. He watched the everlasting darkness through the huge skylight, which, admittedly, gave him a beautiful view of every comet and fellow asteroid that happened to pass Ceres. 

Loud, electronic music began to play in the observation room through invisible speakers, the deep bass and hard to understand male vocals assailing Scott's eardrums. 

God, how he loved those oldies from the end of the 2010’s. That pop music was so abysmal that it literally burned his ears. It was awesome. 

Scott kept spinning around in his chair, singing badly to the upbeat music, fingertips drumming in time on the armrests. He was so absorbed in what he was doing that he didn't notice the small, green, blinking dot on the holographic map of the outer Solar System. 

Only when the song had ended and the next one was about to start, Scott suddenly heard the faint beeping. Immediately, he cut off the music and rolled over to his workstation, conjuring up a translucent keyboard with a wave of his hand.

“Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Scott said to himself, eyes focused on the blinking spot. His fingers flew over the keyboard and the solar system map immediately began tracing the signal - to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus - until it stopped by a larger blue point. 

Neptune.

Scott inhaled sharply and stared at the two different-coloured dots. The signal came from Neptune. It had to be  _ Neptune, _ of all things. Could it be…?

He typed in a few commands in order to specify the exact origin of the signal because there was no way that it could come from this peculiar source. Suddenly, he cringed when an inhuman noise hit his ears. This was definitely worse than 2018’s Pop Music. On a whim, he hit the record button, recording what he just had heard, while he waited for the computer to finish processing the signal source.

But just when he saw the results on the screen after double and triple checking them, it dawned on him that there was only one thing he could do now.

He rolled over to the communication station and opened a secure channel, before speaking to the person on the receiving side:

“Yeah, this is Scott from the Ceres Station. I know this sounds mind-boggling and probably totally crazy. But I’ve just received a distress signal from Neptune, from you-know-what. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the accompanying data and check it out yourself. Lang out.” 

He pressed a button and sent the message including data package, knowing that this would most likely cause an uproar back on Earth.

At least now, it wasn’t his problem anymore and he could go back to more important things.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

_ He walked through a long corridor, shafts of blue light falling through green-tinted windows and giving the passage a surreal underwater appearance. Loose items - shards and debris -  were floating around him as if defying gravity at all cost. But the most obscure thing was that he wasn't floating, although he should.  _

_ He made his way steadily to the front part of the corridor, which led to the bridge. He opened the door and entered the cockpit. _

_ It was dark, except for a red light, which turned out to be an emergency beacon. Just like before in the corridor, the compartment seemed to be completely empty. Rays of aqua light from the front bathed the room in every shade of blue. Through the thick cockpit windows, he could see the nearby surface of the eighth planet. It was a beautiful sight. _

_ Suddenly, he sensed that he wasn't alone anymore. Noticing a movement in the shadows inbetween, he slowly walked on, preparing himself for the worst. But nothing could prepare him for the gruesome sight which caught his eyes.  _

_ The red colour of the emergency light revealed a figure right in front of him at the helm, spinning slowly in zero gravity around its own axis. When he approached it further, the figure came to an abrupt halt, facing him. _

_ His eyes widened in horror. _

_ The figure was actually a naked man with a horribly burnt torso, angry red scars running zigzag all over the mutilated body.  The man had his eyes closed, but seemed to inspect him curiously. _

_ Then… _

_ Then the man opened his mouth and let out an inhuman scream. It was the worst sound he ever had heard, piercing into his very core. All he could do was cover his ears and try to shut out the agonizing noise. But then he made the mistake of looking at the man again. _

_ Suddenly, the man floated forwards and opened his eyes. He gasped. The man looked like his mirror image in a house of horrors. And then, he looked into two empty black pits, two black holes, each with the weight of a billion suns; sucking him in with their enormous gravitation, spaghettifying him, pulverizing him into myriads of tiny atoms. _

_ And he couldn't fight against the pull. _

_ He wouldn’t… _

_ He… _

 

Brown eyes flew open. With a strangled gasp, Tony Stark sat ramrod straight in his bed, panting heavily as he stared into the semi-darkness of his bedroom. Only a faint blue light emerging from the middle of his chest lit up the room a little bit.

As his racing heart slowly calmed down, his thoughts went back to the strange dream. That ship had looked like his baby, his failure. The “Event Horizon”. His ship, which went missing all those years ago.

But why had he dreamt of it right now? And who had been that doppelganger of him? Very strange. 

Tony closed his eyes before opening them again. At once, the room’s lights turned on, revealing a spacious studio apartment. Although he was alone, it had obviously been decorated by someone with a good taste. Had a woman's touch.

His gaze fell on a framed photo on his nightstand, which showed a beautiful woman with rich strawberry blonde hair, throwing a beautiful smile at him. Tony's heart gave a painful squeeze, when he looked at her carefree attitude, and he had to choke back a sob.

Pepper.

He missed her so much that nothing could fill the literal hole in his chest. Not even the delicate piece of machinery, which kept him from dying a painful death. Every day without her was a day full of misery and pain. Today would be no different. 

Tony took the photo in his hands and caressed the woman's face gently with his thumbs.

“I miss you, Pep. More than I can say. Why did you have to leave me? Haven't I been a good husband to you?” He whispered, a single tear falling on the woman's face.

Her expression on the display flickered for a split second, but otherwise she stayed silent. Tony closed his eyes for a second, before he opened them up again and put the frame back on its original place.

“Vis, open the windows and start the coffee. Extra strong. And switch on the TV, while you're at it. I’m taking a shower, if anyone is looking for me,” he ordered, climbing out of bed. 

“Certainly, Sir,” a distinctly British voice replied.

At once, the windows became transparent, revealing a breathtaking view of the blue planet beneath, while in the back several voices talked across each other. Tony, only clad in his favourite pair of pajama bottoms, stepped for a moment at his panorama window, watching the fragile looking jewel beneath his feet.

Earth looked beautiful as ever. Seven landmasses surrounded by the dark blue of the oceans. And still...the scenery was deceitful. 

In reality, Earth was a hellhole. Eight billion people, who fought against each other for territories, ressources and the right to live. Slaughtering enhanced humans, as if they were scum. But the only scum were the people doing the slaughtering. 

Tony was glad that he didn't have to live there anymore. He was up here in his own delicate combination of habitats, arranged in a rotating, cylindrical form. The Stark Space Station - a completely self-sustaining city in the lower Earth orbit, powered by one of Tony's Arc Reactors - and a sanctum for inhumans like him.

This was his realm, where he was King of the World. And no one could take that away from him. 

Tony sighed, before he turned and walked towards the bathroom.

After his same old morning ritual, which consisted of washing, shaving and changing into his favourite shirt and jeans, Tony returned to his living room, but walked straight into the kitchen, where a large cup of steaming hot coffee was already waiting for him.

He took it and grabbed a sealed sandwich from the fridge, before he returned to the living room and plopped down on his black leather couch, absently munching his sandwich and practically inhaling his first dose of concentrated caffeine. 

All the while, he stared at a small holographic screen right in front of him, doing the first work on his his daily schedule; moving files into the trashcan or in different folders; looking at websites, videos or schematics from his personal drive. For an outsider, it must look strange to see him do that without keyboard or any other input device. But for him, it was normality.

Only a few selected people knew, what Tony really was: a technopath. An enhanced individual who could operate technology by only using his mind. But after the whole shitshow that had been the Inhuman Civil War, many Inhumans prefered to stay away from Earth and sought refuge on enclaves like the Stark Space Station, Wakanda, its interplanetary station on Ceres, or Mars. 

Tony just enjoyed his life up here as much as he could. He mostly spent his time tinkering in his workshop and generally helped with everything what had to be fixed.

He was still deeply absorbed in the schematics of the newest Arc Reactor updates, when Vision (his A.I, which also happened to run the Station) made himself noticeable, interrupting his precious work.

“Sir, I’m very sorry to disturb you.” The AI spoke.

Tony looked up and transferred the open file to his personal drive, while stretching the stiffness of disuse out of his muscles.

“What’s up, Vis? You know you aren’t to disturb me unless the Station is on collision course with those fuckers from the AWAF and CAT.” He voiced his displeasure very loudly. 

“I know, Sir. But there are two video conference calls waiting for you. Dr. Banner and his Majesty, King T’Challa of Wakanda. They said it is a matter of importance,” Vision explained.

Tony huffed and leaned back. What could be more important than his work? And what the hell did Banner want from him? He hadn’t neither seen nor spoken to his friend ever since he had taken over SASA’s R&D after the whole debacle with the  _ Event Horizon. _ And T’Challa just seemed to called him whenever he or his little sister Shuri had invented a new tech, just to spite him. 

Well, he might as well get over with it.

“Put them on my secure line, Vis.” he sighed.

“Of course, Sir.”

The holographic screen flickered for a moment, before it was split in two. On the left half, a curly-haired man wearing old-fashioned glasses appeared, while on the right one a dark-skinned man with an amused smile on his face made his appearance.

“Hey Brucie, what’s up? Calling me after all those years and not even a hello. Honestly, you wound me.” he snarked.

Before Bruce could answer, T’Challa let out a deep chuckle. 

“I’m sure, Dr. Banner is just trying to find the right words to greet an old friend after all this time.” he retorted.

Tony glared at the Wankandan King.

“Hello Kitty Cat, can’t say that I have missed your ugly mug,” he fired back.

T’Challa held up his hands in defence.

“We’re not calling to quarrel with you, Tony. This is a matter of the highest importance,” he replied.

“What? Are you out of cat food? Sorry, but I’m not a delivery boy. If you need some, get it on your own.” Tony snarked.

“Tony, please. It’s really important…” Bruce interrupted his conversation partners.

Tony grumbled under his breath and crossed his arms in front of his chest, hiding the small, pale blue glowing disk there behind them.

“Fine. Shoot!” 

T’Challa’s expression became grim, as he leaned forwards.

“Twenty-four hours ago, one of my technicians in my Ceres Station picked up an automated navigation beacon.“ the King started. Tony barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Of course, T’Challa had to rub it in that he had an interplanetary Space Station, while Tony had just an orbital one. “He could pinpoint the signal back to Neptune’s orbit, where it is broadcasting at two minute intervals.” 

The engineer froze, when he heard the name of the eighth planet. T’Challa couldn’t just have said, what he had understood.

“What?” it escaped him.

Bruce took off his glasses.

“What his Majesty was trying to say is that the signal comes clearly from the  _ Event Horizon. _ We have a data package that you should definitely take a look at.” he explained. 

A third smaller window appeared, showing a map of the Solar System. Tony magnified it, until he could see the blinking dot in Neptune's orbit for himself. At the same coordinates, where his baby had disappeared all those years ago. So maybe this wasn't a hoax, after all.

“This is unbelievable. She's really back after all those years.” Tony whispered, his right hand touching the point that marked his ship’s position. So close and yet so far.

He looked up.

“What are you planning to do now?” He demanded to know. 

T'Challa scratched his bearded chin.

“Well, we want to send a search and rescue vessel there to investigate the signal. Maybe trying to salvage the ship, if it’s really the Event Horizon. I’ll need you to put together an information package on the ship’s system for the crew. For the briefing, you know…”

Tony jumped up so fast that he almost knocked himself out.

“Yeah...no, not happening, Kitty Cat. If anything, I’m going with them,” he snapped. “I know we three planned and built this ship together. But the Arc Reactor Gravity Drive is my baby and no one touches my baby without my permission. We all know that I’m the only one who can evaluate the performance of the gravity drive.”

The Wakandan King sighed.

“I know, Tony. But you have never been on an actual mission before. I’m just worried about your safety.” he tried to calm the engineer down.

Tony huffed.

“That’ bullshit and you know it. This isn’t about me at all. The ship was created for just one single purpose: to make interstellar travel faster, so that we don’t have to spend decades and centuries for a journey to the nearest star or galaxy. I mean, mankind has already made baby steps in partly colonizing the inner Solar Solar System. 

But imagine a colony on a waterworld or under a multiple star system with exotic landscapes, flora and fauna. This would be like Columbus all over again, only that we don’t discover America, but Exoplanets. We don’t know what happened seven years ago, but right then we lost not only a ship, but also the crew. Surely you want your crew back in one piece. I can be the one to ensure that. Any questions?” he ended his passionate speech.

T’Challa and Bruce looked at each other. Finally, the king's face became grim again.

“Yes, there's something else you ought to know before you decide.” He stated.

Tony frowned. T'Challa's manner of speaking had suddenly lost its teasing sound. Whatever it was, must be not so nice. The Engineer decided for himself that it was maybe better to sit down for this. So he did sit down, waiting for T’Challa to continue.

Only that the Wakandan King seemed to be in some sort of struggle with himself.

“Come on, Kitty Cat. What's ruffling your fur? Surely, it can't be that bad.” 

T’Challa let out a shaky breath. 

“When Ceres Navigation Control tried to reach the vessel, they got this as an answer.”

A small window popped up underneath both men’s video window, showing the typical line that audio frequencies typically used. First there was only silence, before…

Loud static noise assaulted Tony's sensible ears, followed by inhuman screaming, which just gave him the creeps. Because the screaming was exactly the same as that which his demonic doppelganger had let out in his dream. Coincidence?

“What the fuck was that? Sounds like someone had scratched his fingernails over a blackboard.” he lamented, trying his very best not to show that the horrible sound had shaken him to his core.

Bruce rolled his eyes.

“That's all what we got. Now, there's only the beacon every two minutes.”

Tony leaned back.

“Do you think the crew could still be alive?” he addressed Bruce.

The curly-haired scientist took off his glasses.

“To be honest, I don't know. Their life support systems would have lasted for eighteen months. But that was seven years ago. They're most likely dead.” he guessed.

Tony nodded agreeably. Bruce was probably right. Still, that audio recording was only one more reason to join T’Challa's mission. There were simply too many coincidences, which he couldn't ignore.

“Nevertheless, I’m joining your mission. I need to see with my own eyes, if it's her. How fast can we start?” Tony asked.

The Wakandan king sighed.

“Fine, but you'll have to wait. I can't send any of my ships down here in Wakanda to you. The AWAF is making moves toward our borders again and I really need them there. But I have a vessel and crew that are specialized in these kind of missions. They are normally stationed on Ceres, but are now on vacation on Mars. They can be here in four days time.”

“Four days? Can't they arrive a little bit earlier? Like in two hours?” Tony groaned.

“I'm afraid not. And why the hurry? The Event Horizon has waited for so long. It can wait a little bit longer. Captain Fury is going to contact you when they arrive.” T’Challa explained.

“Fine. By the way, can you send me the Data Package from your base in the meantime? I need some reading material.”

“That’s no problem, my friend. I’ll wish you a safe journey.” the Wakandan King agreed, before he ended the call, leaving Bruce and Tony on their own.

Bruce put on his glasses.

“Well, the same goes for me. I’d like to come with you, but I have duties, you know. But please careful, Tony. You never know what’s out there. I don’t want to lose you as a friend, even if we have gone our separate ways,” he admitted.

Tony would be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t a little bit touched by Bruce’s words. Even after all those years and in these times, Bruce continued to be a reliable science friend. Hopefully, they could reconnect, when he was back.

A small ping announced the arrival of T’Challa’s data package. The Engineer couldn’t wait to go through the files. But first, he really needed a strong coffee.

Because there was only one thing that was on his mind right now.

What the hell happened on the _Event Horizon?_

_ ✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪ _


	4. Are you fucking kidding me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Crew of the Singularity gets a new mission in the middle of their vacation. They are not amused.

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Autonomous Planet and Inhuman Abode of Mars

 

Mars at this time of the Martian year was simply astonishing. Ever since the first Inhumans had set foot on the Red Planet, a few years after the Inhuman Civil War, his surface had changed dramatically.

The terraforming attempts showed the first visible effects. Where once were only frozen wasteland and lots of craters, were now the first signs of Martian flora showing - specks of green that seemed so lost and foreign in this red wasteland. The average temperature had risen to a level where the danger of freezing to death was no longer a necessary evil. Still, there was a long way to go before the living conditions were equal to the ones on Earth.

While the Terraforming Factories were doing their slow work, the new inhabitants of Mars had found their own solution for the time being. The first ones to arrive built a small biodome - a world inside a world protecting them from the extreme temperatures and cosmic radiation - together with their living accommodations and a small spaceport. From there, more cities, factories, and spaceports began to spread all over the planet like a complex snowflake. Long, translucent tunnels carried the speed trains, which connected the spaceports and the cities with each other, built to withstand even the strongest dust storms.

Bigger resorts came into life, first and foremost at the poles and the glacial regions. Especially after whole cave systems had been found containing ancient water, another branch came into being - Tourism. Be it skiing or snowboarding on snow-covered, extinct volcanoes or relaxing in one of the luxurious cave spas - many of the visitors came to Mars just for that reason.

But the biggest tourist magnet was certainly Utopia Planitia, the largest impact basin on the planet. It was located up in the north, just a little below the pole. Originally just frozen wasteland with nothing but rocks and ice, it was now the planet’s biggest red light district, housing a generous underground spa with several pools filled with water from the first days of Mars’ existence. The accompanying spaceport was also the highest elevation aside from Olympus Mons. Ships usually docked at the higher levels and the crews could access the city by taking the elevator to ground level.

One of those ships was the Search and Rescue Vessel First Class _Singularity_ : a sleek and aerodynamic ship which had appearance of an advanced Earth jet, only larger and capable of space travel.

Its two pilots were currently sitting in their respective seats with their gazes directed at a small holographic screen displaying a chessboard and an ongoing chess game. The pilot on the left, a tough-looking woman with shoulder-length fire-red hair and wearing a black catsuit as well as leather boots in the same colour, tapped on the screen. Her black bishop moved to E3, placing himself next to his bishop brother and cornering the white king into the lower right square of the board.

“Awww, king, no,” her blond co-pilot to the right moaned. He was a little bit shorter than the average male, but made it all up with a well-muscled body, which his sleeveless purple overall hid very badly. He looked at the display in despair, but found that his king could move neither to the left nor upwards, since there was already the black king waiting for his.

“Checkmate, I would say! Pay up, Clint,” the redhead replied with a smug grin on her face, holding out a stretched out hand.

Clint let out a loud whine. “That’s not fair, Nat. Why do you always win?”

“Because I’m a good tactician like Fury and Steve. But if you’re playing your cards right, I can show you some moves.” Nat suggested, her green eyes sparkling with amusement.

Clint’s large shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Okay, what do I have to do this time? Truth or dare?” he asked, silently hoping for a dare.

Natasha scratched her chin with one of her perfectly manicured, red-painted nails.

“Well, I think I’ll take a dare.” she finally said.

Clint silently pumped a fist in the air. A dare was always better than the truths, if only because he hated revealing a secret to Nat. Besides, Nat already knew all of his secrets, so it was difficult to tell her something she didn’t know yet.

“Well, then I dare you to make a striptease on the main stage at Valhalla. In front of everyone. Thor has already signalled that he's very excited to have you there.” she stated, a smug expression on her face.

Clint stared unbelievingly at her. “Are you fucking serious?”

Natasha gave a look that clearly said 'I’m dead serious. When have I ever been not serious with these things?’. Clint gulped and finally slouched his shoulders in defeat.

“Can I wear something purple at least?” he muttered.

“Of course, Solnishko. There’s a purple-spangled dress waiting for you there,” she reassured  him.

“Spangles. Nice!” Clint nodded approvingly. Natasha shook her head, smiling fondly, before she stretched her body to get rid of the drowsiness that suddenly seemed to settle in. As much fun vacations were, sometimes it got boring during these long stretches of downtime. Especially when the rest of your crew had fun elsewhere and you had to stay on board, in case an emergency incurred.

She leaned back into her seat and watched the blur of activity under the dome. So many people in such a small space. No wonder that she preferred being in space. Less people in a sheer endless area. Although the only company which she and Clint really tolerated were those of their colleagues. Their own little family. A family that she would and could trust with her life

Natasha stretched her cat-like body again, then turned her head towards Clint.

“I’m hungry!” she suddenly declared.

Clint turned to face her.

“Pizza?” he asked.

Natasha just nodded.

“Star-Lord's Pizza Joint?” Clint asked hopefully.

“Get your wallet. You pay.” Natasha declared before beginning to put her console into Alert Mode.

“Yes!” Clint made a celebratory fist-bump in the air before jumping out of his seat and disappearing into the back, where the crew quarters were located.

Natasha was still busy with locking all stations, when a sudden beeping from the Comm station caught her attention. Frowning, she stood up and walked over, almost glaring at the pounding black and gold letter icon with the four keys - a sign that the incoming message was quadruple-secured. She only knew of one person, who used a quadruple security channel to send communiqués to them. And if she was right, they could kiss the rest of their vacation goodbye.  

Still glaring daggers at the offending symbol, she tapped her right index finger on it. The icon began to shake and one by one, the keys began to disappear until none was left. The letter symbol gave one last dramatic shake, before it opened up in a dramatic swirl. Natasha’s eyes flitted over the apparently urgent message, taking in every single sentence before rereading them.

Fuck. Why did she always have to be right? The red-headed pilot slumped down her colleague’s seat and leaned back. The others wouldn’t definitively be happy.

“Hey, Nat. I found it. We can go.” Clint shouted, bursting back into the bridge. He stopped, when he saw Natasha frowning at the built-in monitor of the Comm Station.

“Everything alright, Nat? You look like you want to murder Steve’s workstation. Which, by the way, is not a good idea.” Natasha rolled her eyes.

“Not exactly,” she admitted, before she clapped her hands together. “Nevertheless, change of plans. We’re ordering in.”

Clint almost doubled over in shock.

“What do you mean we’re ordering in? I was looking forward to some artificially produced air mixed with the unique smell of Star-Lord’s Infinity Pizza. And what change of plans?” he all but shrieked.

Natasha sighed and motioned for him to join her. Clint let out a whine, but who was he to refuse Natasha anything? He walked towards her and joined her side. She pointed at the open message on the screen. Clint bent forward and started to read the message, his eyes widening as its content sunk in.

“Are they for real? They’re cancelling our vacation to accompany some engineer all the way to fucking Neptune?” he hissed.

Natasha nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

Clint shook his head. “Unbelievable. Fury is going to flip, when he hears that.”

“We’ll see, because you’ll be the one to tell him,” Natasha replied, eyeing her friend unhappily.

The blond pilot stared at the redhead with an expression of utter horror. Surely, she couldn’t be serious. “Nat, contrary to popular belief, I don’t have a death wish. You can’t force me to call him,” he huffed, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

Natasha crossed her arms, too, and didn’t say anything, just stared back at him.

The staring contest lasted for what seemed like an eternity before Clint’s posure finally slumped in defeat.

“Fine, you win. Scoot over a bit,” he muttered. Natasha had a smug expression on her face, but stood up and let Clint have the seat.

“Just for your information...I really hate you,” he said in a low voice.

“No, you don’t,” Nat replied.

Clint sighed. “You’re right. I don’t. Doesn’t mean that I like you right now,” he mumbled under his breath.

“I know, solnishko,” Natasha retorted and patted his shoulder.

The blond pilot sighed and opened their Captain’s channel.

Fury was going to kill him.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

There were many underground spas in Utopia Planitia, all of them specialising in wellness, relaxation and more. The biggest of them was the Red Cavern Spa Resort, who also happened to be one of the biggest brothels, where one could play out his erotic fantasies either with his significant other(s) or one of the employed sex workers. Other rooms, both underground and on the surface, were used for all kinds of wellness treatments as well as erotic massages, should a client wish for one.

But the specialty of the Spa Resort were the large spa caverns, of course.

Ancient water reservoirs in large caves, which had been hidden under the rusty planet surface for billions of years, were now heated and pumped through hidden pipelines into smaller pools from the size of a jacuzzi to bigger ones on the surface in bath houses that were also open to the public. Red garnet crystals on the ceiling and at the walls were illuminated by tiny fairy lights, giving the caves their distinctive name.

In the caves, right between the smaller pools, several raised, round platforms stood strategically placed all over the space, each of them having the dimensions of a king size bed. Blood-red, tent-like structures in form of an canopy, fixed to the ceiling, surrounded each platform, effectively shutting out every noise and giving the occupants their privacy. Sort of.

Momentarily, only two of the ‘tents’ were occupied. In the one close to the exit lay three sleeping men, all of them naked. One was blonde, one had deep brunette hair, and the third, a dark-skinned man, lay sandwiched between them.

The other occupied tent was on the other side of that cavern and also inhabited three nude persons, another man and two women, also sleeping. The man, who  was bald and wore an eyepatch over his right eye, lay a bit on the left side side for himself, while his female companions were all snuggled up against each other.

Suddenly, a loud beeping rang through the second tent, waking the black man with the eyepatch. He stirred slowly and let out a quiet groan when the pesky sound did not show the slightest inclination to fall silent. Opening up his left eye, his annoyed gaze fell on the name displayed on the small monitor of his wristband.

Barely suppressing a growl, he heaved himself up into a sitting position before he grabbed the red bathrobe which had ended up on the pillows during last night, and put it on. Then he slipped out of the tent, carefully trying not to disturb his companions.

He marched at a smart pace towards the exit and towards the bathroom, locking himself in. Only then, he tapped on the name. A small holographic picture of his crew member appeared, looking sheepishly at him. The man just scowled at him.

“Fury here. And why am I not surprised by your call? Barton, I better assume that Mars has been flung out of its orbit and is now wandering into the depths of the universe or an asteroid is hitting the planet within the next few hours. Because I recall telling you not to disturb us, unless the world's about to end.” He said.

Holographic Clint winced.

_“I’m sorry, Skipper. I wouldn't have called you if it wasn't important. But His Highness sent an urgent message to you. On a quadruple secured channel.”_

Fury frowned. A message on a channel with such a high security level? Must be really urgent and of the highest priority for King T’Challa, if he was using that channel.

He dragged his fingers over his face. Was it really too much asked for to get some off-time after months in space? Apparently yes. But he was still a Captain of the Wakandan Fleet and had to respond when his king called.

“Fine. Send it over!” he all but barked his order. Clint saluted and disappeared from view. Barely a second later, a ping announced the arrival of the message. Fury opened it and read through, his scowl becoming stronger and more distinct with every passing moment.

Finally, he let out a quiet “Fuck” and switched back to the Communications Channel. Holographic Clint appeared again, gulping in the face of Fury’s murder scowl.

“Alright, Barton. I’ll wake the others, while you and Romanoff calculate the fastest route to Stark Space Station.”

“ _On Earth?”_

“The one and only. Departure is in exactly two hours. So you better hurry up. Fury out.” Fury switched off his wrist band. He took a deep breath, trying to get the feeling, which just happened to have the same name as him, out of his system, before he was about to do something wrong. Only then, he whirled around and stalked back to the cavern.

  
Sam definitively had woken up better on previous days.

This was definitely one of the worst. All he knew that one moment he was still in the middle of his favourite super soldier sandwich. Then he was being woken rudely by Fury, who barked their names so loudly...He might as well as woken up the dead.

Groaning out loud, he eased himself out of the possessive grips of his partners and popped his head out of the tent.

“What the fuck, Fury? You're making enough noise for three! And it’s way too early to get up,” he complained. He needed a strong coffee. The Captain glared at him.

“Wake up your boyfriends, Wilson. We’re leaving,” Fury ordered.

Sam blinked at his boss. His brain _really_ needed a strong dose of caffeine. For a moment, he thought he’d heard Fury saying that they were leaving.

“Wait...What? Why?” he heard himself asking.

Fury resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“New mission came up. More details in two hours aboard the Singularity. I’m going to wake up Carter and Maximoff right now and I suggest you do the same with Barnes and Rogers,” the Captain stated, making a shooing motion at him, before he walked back to his own tent. Sam groaned and dropped his head. How was this even his life?

Steve and Bucky were going to kill him.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

“Okay, let me get this straight. They cancelled our well-earned vacation to accompany some engineer all the way to Neptune.” Steve stated the obvious, his large hands fidgeting with his zipper of his dark-blue overall, while he eyed his friends, who looked just as excited as he was - in particular, absolutely not.

Buck, the ship's engineer, sat on the chair at Steve's station. His black sleeveless overall showed off his black and gold prosthetic left arm. Sam, their rescue technician, stayed close to Buck's side. Both of them nursed a small cup of coffee and were staring through the window at the smaller getting red globe that was Mars.

Wanda, the Medical Technician hovered close to Sharon, their Doctor and her girlfriend. Fury sat in his chair and stared at Steve, who leaned against the wall.

The _Singularity_ had left Mars one hour ago en route to Earth. No one of them had been ecstatic to leave the Red Planet after only two days into their vacation. But a mission was a mission and as a Search and Rescue Vessel team, they had to heed the call. And now they were all assembled on the bridge to discuss T’Challa’s new orders.

“His Highness ordered us to accompany Mr. Tony Stark to Neptune. As far as I know, they want us to investigate something out there.” Fury explained, not overlooking the way Wanda tensed up the mere mention of Stark's name. Everyone knew that there must've been some shared history between the two of them. But no one knew any details, since Wanda refused to talk about that topic.

“And what exactly are we investigating?” Bucky wanted to know. Fury turned his chair to look at him.

“I’m sure Mr. Stark will explain everything in due time. How long until Earth, Barton?”

“Four days at top speed, Sir.”

Fury clapped his hands together and heaved himself out of his seat.

“Alright, then. Barton, activate the Autopilot. Wilson, Maximoff, get the gravity couches ready and then off to bed with you, kids. Let's enjoy the rest while we still can.”

His crew agreed reluctantly, whether they liked or not, secretly wondering what to expect from this mysterious mission. Well, they’d certainly find out very soon.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Four Days later.

Stark Space Station, Earth Orbit

 

Tony was nervous and excited at the same time. Just two hours ago, a bald, black male with an eyepatch, which made him look like one those old-fashioned pirates, had contacted him and identified himself as the Captain of the “Singularity”, T’Challa’s personal interplanetary Search and Rescue ship.

It took him the better part of an hour to pack his things, including a portable version of V.I.S.I.O.N. and his holographic computer, and organize a proxy who would take care of the Station while he was away. Luckily Maria Hill, the current CEO of Stark Aeronautics and Space Administration, who also lived on the Station, had already agreed to it when his plans became concrete.

The remaining hour was spent waiting in front of the airlock, sitting on his suitcase and taking a late glance at the Blue Planet beneath and its satellite. Just in case…

Tony shook his head. No, he’d not think of this. Not yet anyway. Suddenly, a sleek spacecraft, quickly approaching, caught his attention.

Tony had to admit that it was a neat ship. It reminded him of Howard's old Quinjet design from his SHIELD days, but it was much larger and seemed to have an ion drive from the looks of it. Definitely T’Challa's signature.

He waited until the ship had finished the docking process and the airlock light turned to green. Only then, he stood up, waiting for the door to give him access. He didn’t expect that someone was already waiting for him on the other side (although he probably should have). He didn’t expect them to be friendly either. But the blond man with the ridiculous shoulder-to-waist ratio in the dark-blue overall threw him a well-mannered smile (most likely a professional one, just like his own) and extended his strong-looking hand for him to shake. Which Tony did. He wasn’t that impolite, after all, no matter how often Pepper had told him that.

“Hello, Mr. Stark. I’m Commander Rogers, Captain Fury’s right-hand-man. Welcome aboard the _Singularity_. Please come in and I’ll take you straight to the bridge,” he said politely. Tony nodded and grabbed his suitcase, slowly stepping onto the Wakandan Spacecraft.

Looking around, he saw a black male in a red and white overall carrying cylindric devices on both shoulders. A woman in a red overall with brunette hair twisted up in a bun followed him, also carrying two cylinders.

“Mr. Stark, if you’d follow me...You can leave your suitcase here. Sharon will bring it into your quarters, as soon as she has secured the Medbay.” Rogers showed him along the small corridor, which lead to the bridge.

“Yeah, sorry. It’s been a while since I was on a ship,” Tony apologized, following the Commander to the most import room on the ship. From behind Rogers’ shoulders, he could spot the window, which currently showed the moon and four workstations.  

Two of the workstations were in front of the window (Avionics and Flight Control); one at the left side (Engineering), where another man was looking at data on a holographic screen similar to his own with the most impressive prosthetic Tony had ever seen (he totally had to take a closer look at it later); and one station at the right side (Communication and Navigation), where the commander took seat.

A red-haired woman and a sandy-haired man sitting at the flight control stations were arguing about what seemed like the right course, before Rogers interrupted them.

“Okay Nat, we’re ready to undock. Bring us to the maximum distance to the Station, so that we don’t accidentally blow it up when we’re engaging the drive,” he commanded.

“Will do,” the woman said with a slight Russiasian accent in her voice.

“How are the engines, Buck?”

“My babies are fine so far. They cannot wait to get some exercise. We can start if you want.” The man with the prosthetic, and obviously the ship’s engineer, smirked at the blond. Rogers just shook his head and turned his attention back to his station.

Tony decided to stay in the back for the time being and leaned at the corridor wall, listening as the engines came to life. His breath hitched as he heard the sweet song of accelerating positive ions, accelerated by the Coulomb force along an electric field. Such fine technology always made his hands itch with joy and excitement.

Tony continued to listen to the comforting rumbles of the engines while he watched how the woman maneuvered the spacecraft away from his home, a haven he had built for himself and others,who weren’t desired on Earth anymore.

He sighed. Just then, his ears caught the bickering between that Nat and her co-pilot. This time, they seemed to argue about him.

“...I still don’t like this, Nat. Call it an old instinct,” the man argued.

“I know, Clint. Me too,” Natasha admitted.

“It’s not even about this mission. It’s just that we’re on our own, should something happen out there at bumfuck-Neptune.” Clint stated.

“That’s right, Mr. Barton. But you know the rules.” a deep, authoritative voice replied from above, before a chair dropped down in an overly dramatic fashion, carrying none other than the Captain himself with his leather eyepatch. The only thing, which was missing right now, was a long billowing leather trench coat and the dramatic look would have been complete.

Clint looked sheepish and turned back to his console.

“Sorry, Sir,” he muttered.

Fury rolled his eyes and turned to Natasha.

“Romanoff, is the course locked in?” he asked the pilot.

“Locked and loaded.”

“Rogers?”

“We just passed the outer marker. We can engage the ion drive whenever you're ready.”

Fury turned his head to Bucky’s station.

“Barnes?”

“Everything green on my boards, Skipper,” the engineer answered.

Fury nodded and got up.

“Fine, then start the countdown. Fifteen minutes,” he ordered.

Steve turned back to his station and tapped in a sequence.

“Ion drive will engage in...T-minus fifteen minutes,” he repeated.

“Alright, then, off to bed,” Fury said, before he turned to Tony. “That goes for you, too, Mr. Stark.”

Tony watched as the others climbed down a ladder into the belly of the ship, before he followed Fury down there. They passed the airlock bay, where eight bulky extravehicular activity (EVA) suits were lined up. They were greeted by loud hip hop music, coming from a built-in media-player. The other black man, which he had seen earlier, was stowing away last safety lines, while singing along badly to the music.

“Kill it, Wilson. That music is burning my eardrums,” Fury barked, not once breaking his stride. Wilson turned off the music and pouted.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered, while Barnes and Rogers snickered loudly.

“Don’t start with me, Wilson. Off to bed, unless you want to puke all over the place,” Fury mock-threatened.

“Aye-aye, Captain!” Wilson saluted, before he joined their group.

They passed the quarters and Tony could see that they were well-lived-in. There were personal photos, which showed Barnes, Wilson and Rogers in a sort of intimate way (apparently, the tree of them were together) and the brunette woman kissing a blonde one. There were personalized lockers, bunks large enough for three people, a small community room, and galley.

The brunette woman and the blonde woman from the photo were loading the carbon dioxide scrubbers into a container in the floor. Tony watched them, but stayed in the back, doing nothing. Only when Fury turned to him, he noticed that the brunette woman was staring with wide, angry eyes at him, her fists clenched tightly. Tony made a mental note to ask her later if she was having a problem with him and why.

“Mr. Stark, I would suggest that you move on. The clock is ticking and if you’d follow my crew, they will show you to the gravity tanks,” Fury said with that authoritative voice again.

“Sorry…” Tony apologized and hurried after the others, while Fury hung back.

“Everything alright, Wanda?” he asked in a surprisingly gentle voice.

The Medical Technician nodded.

“Just loading the last of these scrubbers.” she replied.

Fury sighed.

“Listen, Wanda, I know it’s not my place. But since Stark will be with us for some time, you should consider talking to him about what bothers you. I can’t have you glaring and not talking to him, when it jeopardizes the mission.”

Wanda looked at him and nodded. “I’ll think about it.” she whispered.

“That’s all I ask for. Now, come on. We need to get ready,” the captain replied.

Wanda nodded again and pushed the last scrubber into the bin, before pressing a button and watching as the container disappeared into the floor. Only then, she followed Fury to Medical, where almost all crew members had already stripped down to their underwear. She did so as well, all the while watching Stark, who didn’t look exactly comfortable.

He approached Fury again, who wore nothing but his boxers and two dog-tags. Tony eyed the burn scars on Fury’s torso, but chose not to say anything.

“Captain Fury, I just wanted to say that I appreciate this opportunity…” he started, but was stopped by Fury, who held up his hand.

“Don’t. Just don’t. Mr. Stark, we’re not going on this mission because we want to. My crew and I were pulled off a well-deserved two-months leave, only to be sent out to the middle of nowhere. And no one's even bothered to tell us why.”

“I’m going to explain everything to you and your crew, once we’re there,” Tony promised.

“I hope so. Until then, you do what you're told and stay out of my way,” Fury all but commanded.

Tony just nodded and started looking for his gravity tank. Nine glass tanks stood lined up at the wall of the circular room, so-called grav-couches. The outermost one on the  right side bore his name. Sharon watched him, before she approached him.

“Your first time in a gravity couch?” she asked, helping him climb in, while Tony watched Fury warily.

“Don’t worry about him. He may be hard, but he's fair...and always a grump. You're lucky to be shipping out with him. He's one of the few Captains in the service with experience in the Outer System.” she explained.

“I heard that.”

“Yeah, we’re normally stationed on Ceres. But before that, he was serving on the _Triskelion_.”

“The _Triskelion_? Isn’t that the last ship destroyed in the Inhuman Civil War?”

“Yup. They attempted to rescue a supply shuttle bound for the Ceres Station. The shuttle's oxygen tanks ruptured during the rescue, flooding both ships with pure oxygen. Then there was suddenly a spark and both ships were incinerated. Only the Skipper and three others made it to a lifeboat in time. Captain Fury was able… Well, he doesn’t like to talk about it,” Sharon finished.

She fetched an alcohol wipe from a small box and swathed one of Tony’s arms with it. Tony winced at the cold.

“Did you eat anything in the last six hours?” she asked him.

Tony shook his head.

“Good. Because once the Ion drive fires, we'll be taking about 30 G’s. Without a tank, the sheer force would liquify your skeleton and you would see your insides on the outside. A suitless walk on Venus would be less painful” she explained, stabbing an injection needle into his arm.

Tony winced at the pain and the comparison. That had been an image which he really didn’t need.

“Five Minutes,” Fury barked in the back.

Sharon handed Tony a breathing mask.

“Put this on,” she ordered. Tony did. Sharon checked the mask’s fit and when she found it okay, she began to close the tank.

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We’ll be there when you wake up. Just watch your fingers. Good night, Mr. Stark.”

Then she closed the tank for good. Immediately, the tank began to fill up with green gel. Tony’s eyes went wide and he reached for the mask. Just then the anaesthesia started to work and his eyes dropped shut, his body automatically curling up into a fetal position.

Outside, Sharon checked Tony’s vital signs on a small monitor.

“Heart-rate decreasing...body temp dropping to 80...70...60...50...40 degrees Fahrenheit. Aaaand...He's in stasis,” she declared, before moving on to her colleagues.

When the Ion drive at the aft of the _Singularity_ began to glow deep red five minutes later, all the crew members were already inert in their tanks, sleeping deeply and dreamlessly. When the engine turned white hot, she pushed the Singularity forwards at an incredible speed.

The journey to Neptune had begun.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	5. Explanations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Singularity has finally reached the Neptune System and everyone is expecting an explanation. Tony gives them.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

_ They say most of your brain shuts down in cryosleep. All but the primitive side... _

Tony knew this quote from an old sci fi horror movie from the beginning of this century. Apparently, it didn’t hold true for him. The engineer had woken up from the sweet chorus of the engines thrusting the ship through the black void between the planets, the beautiful melody of the sun-like fusion completing the song of perfect technology.

Coming out of the tank was surprisingly easier than he’d thought. While the green jelly was still dripping on the cold floor, Tony looked around and saw the eight crew members still in their tanks. He used that opportunity to take a closer at Barnes’ prosthetic, which was a fine piece of machinery as well. Black as the deepest void, but with movable, interlocking plates and colour-coordinated with lines of pure gold. Tony had to admit that T’Challa’s sister had created a masterpiece with that arm. He briefly wondered how Barnes had lost it in the first place. He should definitely ask him later.

“Tony…”

The engineer’s breath hitched, when he heard a voice that he hadn’t heard in ages. His head whipped to the left side, his eyes wide, as he tried to pinpoint the source of the voice.

“Tony, where are you? It’s so cold in here,” the siren voice lured him.

As if in a trance, Tony staggered forwards, passed the quarters and the airlock bay, until he reached to the ladder which led up to the bridge. His bare feet carefully climbed up the icy metal steps into the room which was dark except for a few single, blinking lights coming from the workstations. The only source of light were the eerie blue rays, which streamed through the cockpit windows from ahead, illuminating the two pilot seats.

Only one of them wasn’t empty. An unclothed woman sat in Romanoff’s chair, her pale back facing Tony. The engineer could barely hold back a sob, because he would recognize that strawberry-red crown of hair everywhere. It fell down her scarred back and barely covered her bare shoulders. Oh, how he wanted to kiss those shoulders again. It’d been way too long since he last did.

“Pepper? Is that really you?” he whispered, slowly walking towards her, step by step.

Surprisingly enough, he got no answer from her. The woman did not answer him nor did she move. Tony reached out his hand to touch her shoulder, but pulled back at the last moment, afraid that she would just dissolve into air.

“Pep, I’m sorry for everything. Please, can you hear me?” he all but begged the figure.

He reached out to touch her again. Touched her hair. Touched the cold skin, he hadn’t touched in ages. She didn’t move. But something was definitely off about her face. He could see it in the reflection in the cockpit window. Her eyes were closed, as if she were blind. Taking action, he spun the chair around and saw Pepper in all her naked glory, her baby bump quite noticeable.

“Tony? Help me. It’s so cold in here,” she begged him. “Please don’t let the baby die.”

“I won’t,” he promised.

Suddenly, she let out a shrill scream. A scream so loud that his ears started ringing. Pepper crossed her arms around her middle and started convulsing. Tony could see that her bump was moving wildly. Ten tiny fingers appeared from within, obviously trying to claw a way out. Tony grabbed her by the shoulders, trying to help her every way he could, but jerked back when Pepper finally opened her eyes.

Only that Pepper’s blue eyes weren’t staring back at him. Instead, two empty sockets, which he had seen before, looked at him with clear pain on her face. Tony stumbled back and ended up with his butt on the iced floor. Pepper screamed again and continued convulsing.

Suddenly, Tony smelled something burning. His eyes spotted small puffs of brown smoke at the edges of the window, which kept getting bigger. His eyes darted over to Pepper, where their child had just successfully clawed its way out of its mother’s womb and was staring back at him. The engineer had only split seconds to admire his offspring (It really had the Stark nose.), before all hell broke loose.

A huge ball of fire erupted from the open womb, a blaze of fire pooling up on the cockpit’s ceiling and expanding by the second. The inferno quickly caught hold of Pepper, dissolving her and the baby into ashes, before it got hold on Tony. The engineer screamed, as he felt his skin burning, the heat crawling into every single fiber of his body.

It hurt so much.

So much.

So….   
  


Tony woke up with a jolt, realizing that he was still in the gravity tank. When he noticed that he wasn't wearing his breathing mask anymore, a sudden panic rose up into him. He pounded with his fists against the door of his glass prison, when he saw the others already stepping out of their tanks.

Finally, his own opened with a hissing sound. He ended up falling out of the tank on the floor, throwing up the green liquid, which had held him for 66 days. The fluid kept pooling in a puddle around his shivering body, as he knelt on his arms and knees, desperately trying to catch his breath.

Sharon rushed over to him and put her hand on his back.

“Breathe, Stark. In and out. Deep breaths,” she ordered. Tony did as she had told him to and slowly calmed down.

“That’s fine,” the doctor praised him, before she helped him up. Only then, Tony noticed that she wasn’t staring at the Arc Reactor in his chest and hadn’t done so before they had went to cryosleep. There had been more intense reactions from other doctors. The way they had looked at it - as if he was some guinea pig, which had to watched in some lab. It was nice for a change.

“You can ask, you know.”

Sharon smiled at the offer, but shook her head.

“No, thanks. Aunt Peggy already told me everything about.”

Tony blinked at her. “Aunt Peggy?” he parroted.

Sharon chuckled. “Peggy Carter. She was my Aunt and one of the reason why I joined this crew.”

Tony blinked again. Of course, he had met Peggy, when he was all but a little boy. The Grande Dame and Co-Founder of SHIELD - and Howard’s conscience, when he seemed to have forgotten his own. She had been the only one, besides Jarvis and Pepper, who encouraged him to leave Earth behind and move to the Stark Space Station, when it came apparent that the blue planet wasn’t safe for Inhumans anymore.

“Yeah, she was great,” he murmured, meaning it with all his heart.

“That she was.” The blonde doctor sympathetically patted the engineer’s shoulders before she clapped her hands together. “But now we should get moving. We’re reaching Neptune in a few hours.”

Tony nodded and watched her go over to the Maximoff woman, where she gave her a lookover and a small peck on the cheek after.

“Coffee?” a warm voice suddenly asked him. He looked up and saw Wilson (Was that his name?) approaching him, clad with only a star-spangled towel around his hips and two cups of steaming hot coffee in his hands. Normally, Tony wouldn’t even think about refusing a cup of the black lifesaver. But since his brain wasn’t fully online, all he could utter was a dumb, “Huh?”

Sam sighed and repeated his question more slowly. 

“Do...you...want...some...coffee?”

Tony just blinked at him, but shook his head in the end.

“Okay.” Sam said, before he turned to real-life-adonis Commander Rogers, who wore around his loins a silver-grey towel with a red star in the middle, and shouted, “Hey Rogers. Want something black and hot?”

The man in question turned his head towards the Rescue Tech and eyed him up from head to toe, before replying grumpily, “Fuck you, Wilson!”

Sam laughed out loud.

“Funny, Rogers. Because Barnes and I did that back on Mars and you certainly weren’t complaining,” he snarked.

Rogers suddenly flushed as red as an overripe tomato, but still flipped him off before he disappeared to his quarters with Sam’s maniacal laughter following him. Sam took another sip from his coffee, when the second cup was suddenly snatched away from him and a dark metal arm looped itself around Sam’s neck.

“What’s wrong with Stevie? He looked like a walking red hot chili pepper. Clashes terribly with his hair colour,” the young engineer mused.

“I know. He’s just as grumpy as ever after the cryosleep.”

“You know that he hates that tank just as much as I do. After all, what happened...”  Bucky’s gaze became serious again and he became silent while he obviously got lost in some long-lost memory.

“I know,”“ Sam sighed, while he emptied his cup.

Suddenly, Fury came striding into the Medbay, already completely dressed. He looked around, until he spotted Barnes and Wilson.

“Barnes!” he barked.

Bucky snapped out of his train of thoughts and looked at Fury, who didn't look too amused.

“Yes, Sir?”

“When you're done cuddling with Wilson, go to the bridge and check the engines. Also, meeting in the Galley in thirty. Romanoff is making Pelmeni for Breakfast. And when Mr. Stark here has dressed himself, he will hopefully explain what the hell we are doing out here.” He stated.

Sam and Bucky glanced carefully at the Engineer, who tried his best not to crawl into the next dark corner, before Bucky let go of Sam and pecked him on the cheek.

“Well, I’ll better go then. Sammy, why don’t you show Mr. Stark his bunk so that he can put on some clothes?” Bucky suggested. “I would hate to miss Nat’s specialty.”

Sam sighed, but nodded at last.

“Awesome!” Bucky looked pleased.

“Are you done now, Barnes?” Fury growled, impatience clearly audible in his voice.

The young engineer smirked.

“Already on my way, Sir!” he mock-saluted Fury, before he disappeared from the room. Fury threw Tony a look that was hard to interpret before he followed Bucky.

Sam finished his cup and put it on a small table, where five other empty cups were already standing. Then he turned to Tony.

“Sorry that you have to witness that. But everyone of us is getting a bit grumpy after such a long time in cryo. I’m Samuel Thomas Wilson, by the way. But you can call me Sam.” he introduced himself, offering his hand.

Tony took it and shook it hesitantly. “Tony,” he replied.

“Nice to meet you. Come on, I’ll show you to your place before I introduce you properly to the others.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Sam laughed and showed Tony the way back to the quarters.

“Well, it is.”

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Neptune System.

ETA to Neptune Orbit: 30 hours and 45 minutes

 

While the  _ Singularity _ slowly made its way towards the gas giant’s orbit, Tony had finally managed to get a quick shower to get rid of that tank jelly and to put on his favourite overall (a red and gold one), which earned him more than one raised eyebrow. But Tony was used to that by now. He had brought his pad with him to check his emails, but also used that opportunity to watch the crew, after Sam had introduced him properly, and study their personnel files (He maybe might have hacked into the ship’s computer and made a copy for himself. Take that, Kitty-cat.), which also included their inhuman abilities.

Natasha, the redheaded woman and also the pilot of the spacecraft, was fishing out the last of the pelmeni from a big pot, together with Clint, the Co-Pilot, who held the bowl where she put it in. He had no idea if they were together like the rest of the crew, but Sam had told him that both of them were 100 percent human (a rare thing nowadays) and that they seemed to have some sort of weird relationship going on.

Sam, the Rescue Tech, Bucky, the ship’s engineer (“Just call him Bucky Bear. He loves that.”) and Steve, or Commander Rogers, were sitting on one the benches, huddled together like a sandwich, giggling and whispering like teenagers. It was so damn cute that he was glad not to get diabetes from only watching them. It also confirmed what he had seen on the photo from before their departure from Stark Space Station. Also, Sam was an Empath, while Bucky and Steve seemed to be enhanced in some way, which he hadn’t identified yet. Tony still itched to take a closer look at that metal arm and ask the engineer everything about it (Apparently he was also a retrocog - someone, who could perceive past events.).

Wanda Maximoff (Dream Manipulator? What the hell?) and Sharon (simple healing powers) also huddled together and looked at a tablet, probably looking a video, since he had heard the same voices of a man and an older woman several times over. Wanda still had refused to speak and look at him when introduced. He had no idea what he had done that she gave him the cold shoulder like this. But he was determined to find out.

And there was still Fury. Tony did not know what to make of this man. And why on Earth would T’Challa make him a Captain of his fleet, when he was clearly not from Wakanda? Another thing he’d have to figure out on his own.

The loud clanging of the Pelmeni bowl being put on the table brought him back to reality. Clint had set the bowl with the steaming hot  dumplings in the middle, while Natasha had put a stack of metal plates and cutlery next to it. Last, but not least, the copilot put down two smaller bowls with something that looked suspiciously like sour cream.

“Prijatnawa apitita!” Natasha said and started to serve equal portions to her fellow crew members.

Tony laid his pad aside and took place next to Sharon, because he had to admit that it smelled delicious and he was really hungry.

While everyone started digging into their food, Wanda did not join them. She continued staring at her tablet.

Fury stopped eating.

“Wanda, you should really eat something. Or is something wrong with Pietro?” he asked her.

She shook her head.

“No, he’s fine. Dr. Bruce is working on a full body suit for him, so that he will be able to move and walk by himself.”

“But that’s great. So what's really the problem?” Fury asked surprisingly gently.

“It's just that I was looking forward to visiting him and now we're here - billions of miles away,” Wanda replied angrily, her hands shaking.

“I know. But I'm sure that this won't take too long so that you can visit him, when we're back,” the Captain answered with a glance at Tony, who at least looked a little bit guilty. “So please eat something. You'll need your strength.”

Wanda finally nodded and put her tablet aside before digging in.

 

The rest of the breakfast was spent in silence. Later, when all the dirty plates had been washed and stowed away, the crew assembled again in the quarters.

Tony was nervous, because he had no idea, how they would react to what he had to say. Luckily for him, Fury rose to speak first, looking at his crew.

“Okay, listen up, kids. As all of you might have noticed by now, we have an addition to our merry crew. Since we had the introduction part already, we can skip that. So, Mr. Stark, we all know where we’re going. Please tell us why!”

Tony cleared his throat while every crew member waited expectantly for him to start.

“Well, what I’m about to say is considered Code Black by Kitty... ahem, His Highness, and a few select people besides me,” he began.

The others started murmuring audibly, because that wasn’t something they had expected to hear in this mission briefing. Fury looked intrigued, but didn’t say anything.

Tony pulled up a small holographic screen with a map of the Solar System, which zoomed right to their current position, showing two blinking dots. One was the  _ Singularity _ , the other an unknown emergency beacon.

“Seventy days ago, one of the Techs on the  _ Ceres Station  _ intercepted a signal, a radio transmission, from the orbit of Neptune. It has been identified as the distress signal of the  _ Event Horizon _ .” Tony let the bomb drop.

The murmuring turned into stunned silence, as everyone stared at the engineer, as if he had grown two heads within the last seconds. Then all hell broke loose, with everyone talking at once.

“Are you fucking nuts…?” Clint demanded.

“That’s impossible,” Steve said. “She disappeared with all hands, like what, six-”

“Seven years, Stevie. The Reactor blew her up into stardust,” Bucky corrected him.

“How can we salvage something that doesn’t exist?” Sam complained.

“Bozhe Moi. This is unbelievable…” Nat shook her head, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“...can you fucking believe this? For this bullshit, we have to cancel our leave and my visit to Pietro…” the otherwise quiet Wanda complained to Sharon, looking very angry, while Sharon tried to calm her down.

It continued like this, until Fury had enough.

“Alright, everybody shut up! Let the man speak,” he thundered. Immediately, the room fell silent again.

Tony cleared his throat again.

“Uhm, thanks. What was made public about the  _ Event Horizon _ ; that she was a deep space research vessel; that its reactor went critical and the ship blew up…It wasn’t entirely the truth,” he said. After a small pause, he continued. “The  _ Event Horizon _ was the culmination of a joint project between SASA and Wakanda to create a spacecraft capable of faster-than-light flight.”

Fury’s crew stared at him again, while Fury and Bucky looked interested.

“That’s impossible...” Natasha stated. “The law of relativity prohibits faster-than-light travel…”

“Relativity, yadda yadda yadda. I know, we can't break the  law of relativity, so we had to go around it. The ship doesn't really move faster than the speed of light. In reality, it creates a dimensional gateway that allows the ship to instantaneously ‘jump’ from one point in the universe to another one light years away.” he explained.

“How…” Bucky asked curiously, leaning forwards.

“Well, to speak in layman's terms, one uses a rotating magnetic field to focus a narrow beam of gravitons. These particles fold in turn space-time consistent with Weyl tensor dynamics, until the space-time curvature becomes infinitely large and you have a singularity…”

“Layman's terms, Stark. Explain it as if we were little kids who have no freaking idea of the subject.” Sam demanded.

“Aw, Sammy, I understood it just fine.” Bucky smirked at the Rescue Tech. Sam just flipped him off.

Tony sighed and started thinking of a way to explain the subject to a bunch of non-physicists. Then he had an idea. He expanded the holographic monitor of his pad and opened a drawing program.

“Vis, draw me a rectangle,” he asked his AI.

“Of course, Sir,” The British-accented voice answered, making several crew members jump.

“What was that?“ Bucky breathed in awe.

Tony glanced at the younger engineer, while Vision drew a rectangular shape.

“Just Vision, my AI. He's way better at drawing than I am,” he explained.

“If you say so, Sir.”

“That’s so cool.” Bucky breathed.

Tony resisted the urge to roll his eyes and turned his attention back to the screen.

“Let’s pretend this rectangle represents all of spacetime. Let's say you want to travel from Point A here…” he tapped at the left side, leaving a black point behind, before he tapped at the right, leaving a second, blue one there. “...to Point B there. Now to the really important question: What's the shortest distance between both points?”

Natasha snorted. “That’s easy. A straight line.” she answered.

“Ha, wrong answer. The candidate has nil points. No, the shortest distance between two points is…” Tony paused for a moment to fiddle with his pad.

On the screen, the rectangle folded itself in the middle, so that point A lined up over point B, before a digital pencil pushed through both points.

“......is zero. Because that's what the singularity does: it folds space, so that point A and point B coexist in the same space and time. Right after the ship has passed through this gateway, space returns to normal and the ship has travelled. It's called a gravity drive. And because it’s powered by the same reactor, which powers this…” he pointed at the small reactor in his chest. “...we have called it the Arc Reactor Gravity Drive.” Tony finished his explanation.

“That’s so awesome. But how do you know all this?” Bucky asked.

“Because I’m the one, who built it.”

The crew started murmuring again. Not only Bucky, but also Natasha looked impressed.

“I guess now we know why his Highness sent you along,” she stated. 

Tony had at least the tendency to look sheepish. “Yeah, about that…I more or less insisted on coming along,” he muttered.

“So if the  _ Event Horizon _ didn’t blow up, what happened really to her?” Bucky asked the most important question.

“It was the ship's maiden voyage - quasi to test the drive. Just a small trip to Proxima Centauri. The Event Horizon moved to a safe distance between Uranus and Neptune using their ion thrusters. Then they finally received the go-ahead to activate the gravity drive.

“What happened after? The ship vanished from all our scopes. No radar contact, no enhanced optical, no radio contact of any kind. They disappeared without a trace.” Tony paused again for a dramatic effect. “Until now.”

“So the big question is: Where has it been for the last seven years?” Fury chimed in.

Tony looked at every single one of the crew.

“Well, that’s why we’re here. To find out the reason.”

Again, there was silence, as the crew tried to process what they just had heard. Until Sam spoke up:

“But there’s more to this. I can feel that you’re hiding something.”

Tony sighed. Damn Empaths. You couldn’t hide anything from them.

“Well, you’re right. There is more. Ceres Station hasn’t been able to confirm any live contact, but they did receive a single audio transmission from the  _ Event Horizon _ .”

“A radio transmission?” Fury probed.

Tony nodded.

“Yup. Vision, play the audio files from the data package.”

The transmission blared from the tablet’s speakers. There was lots of static and white noise, but underneath it all, inhuman screams could be heard.   


The crew listened to it with shocked expressions, before looking at each other. Except for Bucky, who looked very ill all of a sudden, and Sam, who didn’t look any better. Then the recording ended abruptly, a blessed silence grazing the meeting room.   
  
“What the hell is that?” Clint managed to get out.   
  
“It doesn't sound like anything human,” Steve replied, while trying to calm his two partners down.

“It sounds like death and blood,” Bucky hissed, clutching his head.    
  
“Wakanda and SASA have passed the recording through several filters and isolated what appears to be a human voice.” Tony explained, before he activates a different file. The resulting wails may have been more human but no less terrifying. It was a cry of pure despair. The last message from a drowning man...   
  
“Bozhe Moi…” Natasha murmured in Russasian.    
  
“What is that?” Fury demanded to know. If there was any danger to his crew on that ship, he had to know.   
  
“Hmmm, it sounds like Latin,” Sharon piped up from where she was holding a pale Wanda’s hand.   
  
“Latin? Who the fuck speaks Latin?” Clint frowned.   
  
“No one, because it's a dead language,” Natasha offered.   
  
“Only mostly dead,” Sharon countered. Then she turned to Tony. “Can you replay it? Maybe I can understand what it’s saying.”

Tony nodded and replayed the infernal incantation. Sharon listened closely to it.   
  
“What does it say?” Fury asked her.   
  
“It sounds like ‘Liberatis me.’ - ‘Save me.’” the doctor said.   
  
“From what?” Fury asked, before he turned his head sharply towards Tony. “Do you think the crew could still be alive? After seven years?”   
  
The Engineer shook his head.

“The Event Horizon only had life support for eighteen months. I don’t think it’s possible, but now that you say it...I have to think that maybe someone has managed to endure until now.”   


Clint used that opportunity to bring up another important question. “Skipper, do we get hazard pay for this?”    
  
Fury rolled his eye and shook his head. “You heard the tape, Barton. Apparently, we're now looking for survivors.”

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	6. Arrival at Neptune

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They arrive at Neptune and have an encounter of the Ghost ship kind.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Neptune System

ETA to Neptune Orbit: 1 hours and 5 minutes

  
After a good night’s sleep in a real bed (gravity tanks could offer only a certain amount of comfort during traveling) and a hearty breakfast, courtesy of Sharon and Wanda, everyone was assembled on the bridge. Natasha, Clint, Steve and Bucky were on their stations, while Fury was in his own chair and Tony and the rest of the crew stayed in the back.

They had passed Triton not too long ago, Neptune appearing from behind the moon’s like a blue pearl, which had been swept up from the depths of the oceans. Only that this pearl was huge and not quite easy to wear as jewelry. Not to mention the enormous, anticyclonic stormfront with top wind speeds of currently 2000 kilometers per hours they were facing right now, from whose edge Ceres Station had received the _Event Horizon’s_ last transmission.

“Awwww. Stevie, look. He has your eye colour,” Bucky raved with a huge smirk on his  face.

“No, he hasn’t,” Steve grumbled, blushing slightly, before he glanced at the last third of their trio.

Sam just shrugged his shoulders. “He’s got you there, Ameribear.”

“Quit flirting and focus on the task,” Fury ordered from his captain’s chair.

Steve blushed again and turned his attention back to to his station, data flashing all over his monitor. “Crossing the horizon…..right now. Optimum approach angle is fourteen degrees.”

Fury nodded. “Romanoff, come around to three-three-four...” he ordered.

“Heading three-three-four…” Natasha repeated.

“Make your approach vector negative fourteen degrees…” Fury continued.

“One-four degrees…” Natasha echoed, keying in the coordinates and data into her station.

The ship’s thrusters rotated and fired as the _Singularity_ finally entered Neptune’s orbit, slowly dropping lower and lower into those gaseous blue clouds. As they ventured deeper into the tempestuous atmosphere, the ship started to rock and to shake as it got caught up in one of the jet streams.

As everyone was staring at the image of Neptune’s dark shadow in anticipation, Steve’s station suddenly blared a loud klaxon. The commander turned his sight back to his screen and at the incoming messages.

“Sir, we have a lock on the Event Horizon's navigation beacon,” he said.

Fury rotated his chair to the right. “Where?” he asked.

“Upper ionosphere, so we might be in for some chop,” Steve replied.

“Aren’t we already?” Clint muttered from his station.

“Barton, Romanoff, bring us in tight. Rogers, get on the horn and see if anyone is listening.” Fury gave as an order.

Steve nodded and opened a comm channel.

“This is Wakandan Aerospace vessel _Singularity_ , hailing the _Event Horizon_. _Event Horizon_ , do you copy…?” he radioed the other ship. When he received no answer, he continued his efforts. “This is the _Singularity_ , hailing the _Event Horizon_. Do you copy, _Event Horizon_ …?”

While Steve tried to reach the other ship, Clint and Natasha continued to steer the ship through the thick gas clouds.

“Matching speed... now. Range to target ten thousand meters and closing…” Natasha said out loud over Steve’s continued effort to reach their target.

“I have a bad feeling about this, skipper,” Clint muttered.

“We’re all on edge, Barton. Just focus on getting us through this fog.” Fury sighed.

“No, it’s not like that. It’s just that a ship has been built to go faster than the light. It goes against everything we know…” Clint argued.

“You mean like ‘If some higher being would have intended Man to fly, he would have given us wings?’ Something like that?” Fury suggested.

“Yup, something like that.”

Fury couldn’t resist a grim grin.

“Barton, obviously you forgot that this is exactly the kind of attitude which was used in the Inhuman Civil War. And that some of your colleagues are Inhumans.”

Clint blinked, before he groaned and smacked his forehead with his free hand. “I’m sorry, Skipper. Apparently, my brain-to-mouth-filter isn’t working right,” he apologized.

“I've noticed,” Fury mused. “Then let’s find out if everything said about the Event Horizon is true. Keep us slow and steady.” he stated.

Clint nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

They descended further into the ionosphere, until Fury’s eye spotted something in the distance.

“Mr. Stark, could you please come to me? I think you might want to see this.”

Tony came to Fury’s chair, who stared through the window at something. The engineer himself couldn’t see anything right now.

“Is she there?” he asked the Captain.

“5,000 metres ahead of us.”

Suddenly, the whole ship was shaken through violently. Tony grabbed the back of Fury’s chair to steady himself, staring out of the front window into those churning cerulean masses of condensed watery vapour.

At their stations, Natasha and Clint looked grim, knuckles whitening at their attempt to keep the Singularity steady.

“Sorry, but we’ve got some weather,” Cint apologized.

“So I’ve noticed,” Tony deadpanned, trying to suppress the slight feeling of nausea building up in his stomach.

“Any success, Rogers?” Fury asked his second-in-command.

“No. If someone is there, they’re screening their calls,” Steve answered.

“Keep trying…” the Captain answered.

“Range 3000 metres. And closing...” Natasha’s voice counted out loud.

“I can’t see anything,” Tony replied, as thick clouds of atmospheric methane ice whirled past the ship’s windows.

“1500 metres and closing. We’re getting too close, Nick,” Natasha said.

“Where is it?” Fury barked.

Steve checked his console.

“The scope is lit. It should in right in front of us.”

“1000 metres…” Natasha’s voice read out warningly.

An alert began to blare, red lights showing off the danger of the situation.

“Shit! Proximity warning.” Clint cursed, while Natasha continued to read the remaining distance from their target. “900, 800 meters, 700…”

“Fuck! We're right on top of it. We're gonna hit it!” Clint shouted.

“Rogers…” Fury growled.

Steve looked baffled. According to his instruments, she should be right here. But she wasn’t. So where was she?

“She has to be here…” he stammered.

Suddenly, the clouds parted dramatically and, appearing from the mist like a ghost, the huge front of the _Event Horizon_ was right in front of them. The dark structure of the ship was in stark contrast against the oceanic blue of the planet. Huge cloud banks encircled the ship, making her look like the eye within a storm.

“Full power on the reverse thrusters!” Fury barked.

Just in time, the thrusters fired and brought the _Singularity_ away from certain death by colliding with the ghost ship. When they were back at a safe distance, everyone could breathe freely again. It was deathly quiet on the bridge with the proximity alert being the only source of noise.

“That was close,” Fury stated, before he got up and walked over to Clint’s station, turning off the alert.

Everyone stared at the massive spacecraft in front of them, which made the _Singularity_ look like a tiny bug compared to it.

“Holy shit, that’s one big, ugly fucker…” Clint mused.

Tony glared at him. “Hey, she’s not ugly.”

“Speak for yourself, Stark.”

“500 metres and holding…” Nat’s voice ended the discussion, before it could begin.

“I’m picking up magnetic interferences.” Steve told Fury.

“Put it through TACS, Rogers. Natasha, what do you think of a flyby?”

“I’d love to...” she deadpanned, her face showing exactly that this was sarcasm in its purest form.

She maneuvered the _Singularity_ close along the other ship, keeping her hands tight in the controls, while the rest of the crew still had trouble getting used to the strange sight.

“Man, that thing is huge,” Sam said in awe.

“Yeah, on this part of the ship are the foredecks with the Crew quarters, the Bridge, Medical and Scientific labs, Hydroponics. That central section connects them with the Engineering containment area,” Tony explained.

“The whole ship looks like a huge space condor.” Sam stated.

Tony ignored the comment and pointed at a spot in the hull.

“Can we move closer there?” he wanted to know.

Clint grimaced at the his work station. Gosh, was this guy serious? From the looks of it - probably.

“Geeze, any closer and we're gonna need a rubber…”

“Just do it, Barton,” Fury dictated.

Clint threw Nat a desperate look, but the redhead just rolled her eyes and moved her hands carefully over the controls. The _Singularity_ moved closer to the foredecks and sped along the central corridor to a huge orb-like construction, which loomed ahead of them.

“That's the engineering containment. It houses the Gravity Drive.” Tony explained, before he pointed at a round seal. “And there's the main airlock. We can dock there.”  
  
“Barton, use the arm and lock us onto that antenna cluster, before you start the docking process.”   
  
“But be careful. It's not exactly a load bearing structure…” Tony warned them.

“Don’t worry. We got this…” Clint reassured him.

Natasha piloted the ship in close to the airlock, carefully of course. Clint pushed a button and a mechanical boom-arm started to extend from the _Singularity_. Its clawed hand latched onto the bigger ship  and grabbed the antenna cluster in front of them, which buckled under the sudden stress of additional weight.

“Aaaand...we’re locked in.” Clint announced.

“Good. Barnes, how are the engines doing?”

“Purring like a cat that just got laid, Sir,” Bucky answered after one glance at his instruments.

“Fine. Rogers, give me the readings,” Fury then asked Steve.

The blond commander looked at his screen.

“Reactor's still hot. We've got several small radiation sources. Leaks probably, but nothing serious,” he read out loud.

“Does she have pressure?” Tony wanted to know.

“Yes. The hull's intact, but there's no gravity and the thermal units are offline. My readings are showing deep cold. Which is odd...The crew couldn't survive unless they were in stasis.” Steve confirmed, before his facial expression turned into a frown. “That’s strange. Something must be wrong with the bioscan.”

“What’s going on? Radiation interferences?”

“No, Sir. There ain't  enough radiation to throw off the scan. I'm picking up traces of life forms, but I can't get a lock on the location.”

“Could it maybe be the crew? Would it affect the scan if they were in cryosleep?” Tony wanted to know, since he didn’t know how the bioscan on T’Challa’s vessel worked.

“If they were in stasis, I'd get a location on them, no matter if they are in cryo or not. But these readings I’m getting, they make no sense at all.”

“In what way?”                       

“They are all over the ship. Even in spots where it’s too dangerous to go to.”

Fury had listened to Steve’s explanations. Of course, there were many reasons for the strange result. But to stay here and to discuss them out would only cost them precious time. Because just looking at Stark’s creation made his skin crawl and he wanted to spare himself and his crew from spending too much time in this environment. So there was only one thing he could do.

He got up from his chair and clapped his hands together.

“Okay. Let’s do it the old-fashioned way. We trawl through the whole damn thing - Deck by deck, room by room. Rogers, deploy the umbilicus. Barnes, Maximoff, I believe you're up for a walk outside. Go get your bonnet on.”

“Yes, Sir.” Bucky saluted with a huge grin on his face. He rushed from the bridge with Wanda in tow and Tony following him, too. But Fury stopped the engineer.

“Where do you think you’re going to, Stark?” he asked.

“Uhm...With you?” Tony replied in confusion. Because where else should he go?

But the other man shook his head.

“You’re staying, because I need you on the bridge.” he dictated.

Tony looked at him with disbelief.

“With all due respect, Captain, but you can’t do this. I didn't come out here to sit it out on your bridge. I need to be on that ship...I need to…” he protested loudly.

“And you will. But only after we have secured the ship.”

“This is bullshit and not acceptable...“ Tony’s voice trailed out, rising with every spoken word.

Fury directed his patented glare with full force at the Engineer.

“This is the way we do things, when we encounter unknown terrains. I need you to guide us from Barnes’ station. This is where I need you. The faster we get over with this, the faster can you get on your ship. So help us to do our job and get this over with.”

Tony took a shaky, angry breath, before he exhaled it and walked over to Bucky’s station wordlessly, slumping down on the chair like a heavy sack of potatoes.

“Fine…” He grumbled.

“Good. Rogers, you’re in charge.” Fury said to both men, before turning on his heels and making his way down to the airlock bay, where Wanda and Bucky were already in half in two of those EVA suits, a sulking Sam helping them to put on the bulky suits.

“That’s not fair, Sir. I was just putting on my boots, when those two came and told me they’re going,” he grumbled, while helping Fury into his.

“You've had plenty of EVA hours, Wilson. It's Barnes' turn now. Besides, I need him for the Engineering containment. Stay on station. Just in case anything happens…” Fury said. Sam made a face, but continued to concentrate on his actual work.

“I’ll be all over it, Sir.”

A dull noise coming from the belly of the ship alerted them to the umbilicus being activated. The vessel’s umbilicus, unlike his namesake, was nothing more than an extendable docking collar, which created a short, gravity-less tunnel between both ships.

While Fury and Wanda were already in full gear, Bucky’s headgear was still missing. But as soon as the green light on the opening mechanism signaled them that they were connected with each other, the floor began to lower, so that they could enter the inner airlock, which was half beneath the ground level.

Bucky attached his safety line while Fury and Wanda did not.

“You still need the rope? I thought you were one of those spacemen with ice in your veins.” Sam teased him.

Bucky raised an eyebrow.

“And give Stevie a heart attack? I don’t think so. Besides, I'd rather be on the rope and not need it than need it and not have it. And now step aside, old man,” he teased back.

Sam sighed and put Bucky’s helmet on his suit, sealing it tight.

“Just keep your nose clean, Bucky Bear,” Sam replied, getting serious now.

Bucky rolled his eyes over Sam’s highly developed mother-hen tendencies.

“Just don't do anything stupid until I get back!” he said.

“How can we? You're taking all the stupid with you. Clear the door,” Sam said fondly to his partner, who winked at him cheekily. Then, the Rescue Technician backed out and allowed the door to close behind the three of them, the echo loud enough that it could be heard through the entire _Singularity_.

As Fury, Bucky and Wanda floated through the tunnel, a paper-thin wall being the only thing protecting them from Neptune’s stormy, poisoned weather turbulences, not only Sam wondered what would await them on that creepy ship.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	7. Did someone say something about ghost ships? - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The exploration of the Event Horizon has begun.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

It was a strange feeling that came over Bucky when the airlock door closed behind Sam. This would be the first time without his partners at his side and Bucky couldn’t deny that he was excited and afraid at the same time. Excited that he’d get to see an experimental new drive - a fact which made his Engineer’s heart go crazy. Afraid, because he had no idea what would await them on the  _ Event Horizon  _ after all those years.

So, he followed Fury and Wanda with his safety line, as they floated through the umbilicus, azure light with the occasional thunderbolt illuminating their way.

Meanwhile, Sam returned to the bridge, taking position next to Steve, who had put the live feeds from the helmet cams onto a bigger holographic monitor so that everyone could watch what was going on on the other ship.

Tony had temporarily taken over Bucky’s station and watched the feed also with interest, no, more like a person who was about to experience his first Christmas celebration. Only a few steps separated him from the first pictures of his baby after seven long years.

They watched as their teammates finally reached a round-shaped metal door with surprisingly intricate ornaments.

“That’s the outer airlock door,” Tony spoke into his comm device in his right ear.

“Understood. Wanda, your turn,” Fury answered.

He moved aside so that Wanda could move towards the sealed door. From a bag on her utility belt, she took a small, rectangular device and attached it to the center of the door.

The display began to glow with a bright blue light, white ripples showing that the device was working as it used sound waves to measure the pressure within the other vessel.

“Okay, we got pressure,” Wanda finally confirmed.

“Good. Clear and open on my mark,” Fury ordered.

Wanda nodded and put the device back into the bag. She then took a zero-G drill from her belt, waiting for Fury’s sign.

”Okay. Three...two... one... mark.”

Wanda put the drill into the panel on the right side of the door. All of the crew members held their breath.

The door opened slowly opened, revealing the main corridor bathed in blue light.

The three of them moved forwards, entering the corridor. In awe, they stared at the tremendous rhombic tunnel, which seemed to stretch for kilometers into darkness both ways. They could see strategically placed windows forming pools of azure light in midst of all the black, only adding to the vast sense of scale.

They could see tiny ice crystals of frozen atmosphere floating all over the place, glittering in the light coming from the triple spotlights on top of their helmets. All in all, the dimensions of that corridor alone made them look like bugs in a monumental mausoleum.

“Stevie, Sammy, can you see this? This thing is huge,” Bucky whispered in awe.

Steve and Sam could indeed see the measurements of that corridor. Didn’t mean that they had to acknowledge the design like Bucky did.

“There are ice crystals everywhere. The whole place is deep-frozen,” Fury scoffed. Not that he had expected otherwise. “Stark, where are we exactly?

“You are in the central corridor. It connects the personnel decks with Engineering,” Tony explained with a glance at the monitor, ignoring the excited flicker of his heart at the sight.

Fury huffed. “Fine. Guess we split up then. Barnes, you go to Engineering, while Wanda and I search the forward decks. No hot-dogging in here, Barnes. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal, Sir.” Bucky saluted him before kicking himself off the wall with all his strength, using the momentum to gain speed. Fury scowled when he looked after Bucky racing down the corridor towards Engineering. But there was no real anger in his gaze, just a hint of amusement.

“Come on. Let’s get this over with,” Fury said, before he turned into the other direction. Wanda nodded her agreement and followed her Captain. Both of them moved in the opposite direction, using their magnetic boots to walk on the wall, occasionally dodging the odd chunk of floating debris strewn throughout the ship...

They had no idea how long they were walking, but it seemed to stretch out for ages, the everlasting darkness making their skin crawl. Finally, they stopped where two sections of the corridor joined. Fury had spotted something resting against a coupling. It was a small box with a well-known sign on it - the universal emblem for explosives. Wanda spotted a few more.

“There are more over there. Looks like they are all over the place.” she told him.

“ _ They’re explosive charges _ ,” Stark explained over the comm.

“I can see that. I’m just asking myself right now, what they are for?” Fury deadpanned.

 

On the  _ Singularity’s  _ bridge, Tony could practically hear the eyeroll in the Captain’s voice.

“They are for emergency cases. Should the drive somehow malfunction, the charges can be detonated in a series of explosions, so that both sections of the ship can be separated and the crew can use the foredecks as a lifeboat,” he explained.

“Well, at least that means they didn’t abandon ship,” Fury said, before he and Wanda moved on.

“So where are they?” Wanda wondered.

“That’s the big question. Rogers, any luck with the bioscan?”

 

On the  _ Singularity _ , Steve looked at the scanner and frowned. He was still getting readings from all over the Event Horizon, although it was most likely empty. Maybe something was wrong with the scanner. Better, if he just let the diagnostic program run.

“I'm running diagnostics now, Sir…” A small beep signaled that his program had finished its run. The results, however, were the same as before. “Sir, there’s nothing's wrong with the sensor pack. But I'm still getting the same trace life readings all over the ship.”

Wanda and Fury looked at each other, pearls of cold sweat running down their faces. They looked around, but couldn’t see anything.

“Sorry, but there’s no one here,” Wanda stated.

“ _ Not according to the computer, _ ” Steve radioed back.

“Wanda’s right. We’re the only ones here,” Fury verified.

“But then, this place is really dark….” Wanda muttered, before she held up both hands. Red swirls of light began to emerge from them, not only lighting up the darkened sections before them but also the pools of light, which were now a vibrating purple colour.

“That’s better,” she whispered.

“Take it slow, Wanda,” Fury admonished, before they slowly moved on.

“The foredecks must be ahead of you,” Tony said through the comm.

“I can see it. The hatch, I mean,” Wanda suddenly replied. Indeed, there was an arc-shaped door right in front of them. While Wanda kept lighting up the dark areas, Fury moved to the closed opening.

“Rogers, do you still get those readings?” he asked his second-in-command.

“Affirmative, Sir,” was Steve’s response.

Fury pressed his lips together. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like this at all. But they had no other choice than to move on.

“Wanda, keep your eyes open,” he muttered, as he reached for the access hatch. She nodded and gave him light. Fury pulled the lever and held his breath (as did Wanda and the rest of the crew on the  _ Singularity _ ) before he opened it.

Neon green lights greeted them as they entered the foredecks. The light came from the eighteen gravity couches, which were lined up in a semicircle at the wall. All of them were empty.

“We found the gravity couches,” Fury radioed back to his crew.

“Survivors?” Tony responded back.

“Nope. They are all empty, Mr. Stark. We’re moving forward,” the Captain replied back, before he and Wanda moved on. From the gravity couch bay, the way split into two exits: one to the bridge; one to Quarters and Medical.

“Okay. Wanda, go to the right. See if you can find anything. I’ll search the rest…” Fury suggested. Wanda nodded her helmeted head in agreement.

“Good.” Fury wasn’t entirely comfortable splitting up with his Medical Tech. But the faster they got it over with, the faster Stark would, hopefully, quit his whining. But before he walked down his exit, he put one hand on Wanda’s suited shoulder, hesitating for a moment. “Just be careful, Wanda.”

The Med Tech threw him a small smile, before she answered. “You too.”

Fury nodded agreeingly. Then he let go and they separated, each of them walking towards their final destination, not knowing what would await them. 

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Back on the  _ Singularity _ , Tony, Steve, and the others watched as Fury and Wanda headed into different directions. The third feed showed that Bucky was standing in front of a massive, round pressure door, which had the same intricate ornaments and designs as the airlock door.

“You've reached the First Containment Seal. The engineering decks are on the other side of that door,” Tony told him over the comms.

“ _ Understood _ .”

They watched as Bucky took the same device from his utility belt that Wanda had used at the airlock door and put it on the entrance, measuring the pressure of the section behind the door.

“We still have pressure in there. The radiation count's steady at 7 millirads an hour,” he replied after a glance on his Geiger counter.

“Normal background radiation. Perfectly safe,” Tony stated.

“ _ If you say so… _ ” came the cheeky reply right away.

Tony rolled his eyes and eyed the remaining two thirds of the trio. “Is he always like that?” he asked both men.

Sam and Steve chuckled.

“You have no idea.” they chorused. “But he’s actually pretty normal during...what was it? Twenty percent of the time?” Sam asked his partner.

Steve shook his head. ”Twelve percent, Sam.”

“Oh, yeah right. But we wouldn’t have it any other way.” Sam replied with an audible fondness in voice. Steve smiled, before they turned his attention back to the feed. Bucky was just touching a panel on the right side. It lit up green for a moment, before a dull thud could be heard and the door slowly slid to the left side, revealing a long, tube-shaped passageway, which was rotating like an old-fashioned turbine.

“ _ This feels more and more like the Flying Dutchman. Who the hell even designed that thing? Because he needs seriously a kick in the ass. I’m getting dizzy by just looking at it, _ ” Bucky complained over the comm.

Tony, wisely, said nothing. So what? He liked rotating things, like his space station for example. And besides, it was a kind of art for him. So he ignored the lingering eyes and the quiet snickering that accompanied them. Philistines.

“Okay, I’m entering that thing now. Wish me luck,” Bucky said and made the first step into the corridor.

On the Singularity, Sam moved over the ladder, which led to the airlock bay, where he could see Bucky’s safety line and hear the clicking, which indicted every single centimeter (now showing 155 meters) Bucky was moving away from them. It was the only thing which kept the three of them connected right now.

The distance kept growing and they hoped they wouldn’t reach the end of the line.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Wanda ended up at another pressure door.

Puzzled, she wondered what was behind it. Sure, it would have been easy to ask Stark. But she still couldn’t bring herself to ask him personally, because she knew that she would only end up yelling at him. And that would be counterproductive. So she resolved to a compromise. She asked Steve instead.

“Steve, can you tell me, where this door leads to?” she asked the commander.

On the bridge, Steve looked at Tony, who sighed.

“Tell her, it leads to the bridge,” he muttered.

Steve nodded. “Wanda, you’re about to enter the bridge. You still haven't seen any crew?”

“Sorry, Steve. Still empty.” She took a deep breath and opened the door.   
  


Meanwhile, Fury had reached the personal crew quarters and walked onto the Medical Bay, listening to the crew chatter. When he finally reached Medical, all he found was an empty deserted lab. Four empty operating tables looked as if they were waiting for patients. Stainless steel surgical instruments floated through the whole room in zero-G. Suddenly, a white glove floated up behind him and brushed his shoulder. Fury wheeled around to see if someone was there, but the glove was empty and spun away from Fury’s action.

Then he heard Wanda saying something to Steve and barged in.

“If we saw any crew, Rogers, you'd know about it. By the way, I’m in Medical. The place looks like it has never been used before. And no, no one’s here,” he barked. Then his eye spotted something. “I think I found something. Calling back in a minute.”

That ‘something’ was the Medical bay’s workstation. Fury just prayed that it was working.   
  


Wanda entered the section. It was still dark and not quite the bridge she expected. It looked more like an antechamber, a room where you could hold meetings. The chairs and the display table told her so. If it weren’t for that strange red mist floating around the room and her, everything looked ready for the next meeting.

Wanda tried to make something out through the red haze, but it wasn’t that easy. Apparently, the crew back on the  _ Singularity  _ were interested in something far more interesting.

“ _ Wanda, what’s that red mist? It looks strange, _ ” Steve’s voice said over the comms channel.

“I don’t know. But I can try to find out.” Wanda said. She held up her right hand and touched one of the red glittering crystals, of which the mist seemed to consist. The icicle bumped away in slow motion, when it collided with her finger. Suddenly her eyes widened in surprise and she let out a strangled gasp.

On the  _ Singularity _ , Sharon hurried forwards, when she heard the concerning sound coming from her girlfriend.

“Wanda, honey, everything alright?” the doctor asked with a concerned voice.

Wanda’s breath quickened and she felt her eyes tearing up, but not from the latent panic inside her, which suddenly tried to swallow her completely. No, it was the origin of that red mist that shocked her fully.

“That’s blood,” she whispered. Her fellow team mates on the other ship looked at each other. Had they heard just right?

“Wanda, can you repeat that please?” Steve asked her gently.

Wanda nodded.

“That red mist all over the place...that’s blood. Human blood. Looks like arterial spray.” she repeated quietly. 

 

Once again, Sharon, Steve, Sam and Tony exchanged meaningful glances. What the hell just happened over there?

“Can you see a body?” Sharon asked nervously. She didn’t want to upset Wanda any further, but all that blood had to come from somewhere.

Wanda took a look, but as far as she could see, there wasn’t one. “Sorry, there’s no one here.”

“ _ But all that blood just doesn’t appear magically _ ,” interrupted Fury’s voice their chat.

“I know. But there’s really no one here. Shall I take some samples for you?” she asked Sharon over the comms.

The doctor chuckled. “If you don’t mind doing this for me....?”

Wanda shook her head. “I don’t.” she replied.

Just as she had taken out a small container for the samples and fully concentrated on it, a blue flash of lightning lit up the whole bridge, revealing a horrifying amount of blood and chunks of human flesh at the windowed walls behind Wanda’s back. Wanda never noticed, because when she finally had caught some of the blood crystals and turned towards the window, the flash was gone and the room fell into darkness once again.

Wanda tucked the tube into her belt, before she walked on and entered the bridge. It was just as dark as the rest of the ship. Wanda used her triple helmet spotlight in combination with her powers to make a quick sweep of the room. It was just as empty and most of the surfaces/controls were not working, except for one station, where a couple of dim lights were blinking.

“Steve, I’m on the bridge. Everything's been shut down. To conserve power, I guess.” Wanda moved to the only working control and checked the lights. Luckily, everything looked alright so far. “Green light on the hull. It's intact.”

“ _ I found a working control in Medical. The science station has power. I’ll try and see if I can find something about the whereabouts of the crew, _ ” Fury chimed in from the Lab, where he had been  _ overjoyed _ to find something that was actually working. The other question was, what he would find.

Back on the  _ Singularity _ ’s bridge, Tony suddenly snapped his fingers loudly to get Steve’s attention. He had seen recognized something that might help them soon. The blond commander gazed questioningly at the Engineer.

“What?”

“Tell Ms. Maximoff to go three steps back and then turn to the right. Now!!!” he all but ordered.

Steve raised an eyebrow, when he heard that kind of tone from the engineer, which  only Fury mostly used.

“And what’s there?” he sighed.

Tony let out a frustrated sigh.

“The ship’s log, Commander. Just thought it might be helpful,” he suggested.

Steve looked at him, before he turned back to Wanda’s feed.

“Wanda, did you hear what Mr. Stark said?” he asked her.

“I’m on it,” was Wanda’s reply.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

On the exact opposite of the ship, Bucky had made it through the Tunnel of Dizzying Terror without throwing up and was now standing in front of an even larger pressure door. It looked like the passage to a glorified bank vault. Whatever was behind it must be immensely precious. Still, it didn’t stop welling up some certain images and feelings of terror from the past. His breathing quickened and he clenched his fists so hard that his gloves protested audibly. 

He knew that everything from then was long over. And yet, it took Bucky a long moment to get a grip on himself, before he was able to contact the  _ Singularity _ . 

“Guys, I’ve passed the Tunnel of Dizzying Terror and am standing now in front of some kind of containment door. That thing is huge…You didn’t hide hoards of gold in there, or anything?”

“ _ Not exactly. That’s the second Containment Seal. The Arc Reactor Gravity Drive and Engineering are beyond that door, _ ” Stark’s voice told him.

“Alright, no gold then. I’m going in,” Bucky told them, touching the panel next to the door.

“ _ Okay, be careful, Buck, _ ” Steve said to him over the comm. Bucky snorted and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Steve was just as bad as Sam, when it came to mother-henning. Not that he minded...But sometimes, it tended to get on his nerves.

“Yes, mom…” Bucky singsonged, before he entered the sanctum sanctorum of the  _ Event Horizon _ .

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Wanda stared puzzled at the control which contained the ship’s log. She moved to the spot Stark had spoken about, and found something, which she had only heard about in history lessons.

“ _ What did you just say? _ ” Steve’s voice asked unbelievingly.

Wanda sighed and repeated what she just had discovered. “I said, there’s a Blu-Ray DVD halfway stuck in the recording device. I can’t get it out.”

Back on the  _ Singularity _ , everyone shot Tony meaningful glances, including Nat and Clint, who had brought coffee for everyone.

“A Blu-Ray DVD? Really, Stark? We live in the year 2067 and you use such ancient media on such an advanced ship?” Clint snickered. Even Natasha had trouble hiding a small grin.

Tony glared at the Co-Pilot.

“It wasn’t my idea to use that particular medium. Dr. Banner felt that it was better to use a physical medium as secondary backup,” he explained.

“Sounds reasonable.” Steve nodded. “Wanda, can you get it out?”

“ _ I’ll try. But it’s really jammed in there. _ ”

The Med Tech took a closer look. One third of the disc was inside the control. She took the part, which was outside, and pulled on it. It didn’t move. Wanda pulled harder, not noticing that something moved behind her - a black shadow that was covering the blue light coming in through the windows.

Wanda tried one more time to get the disc free. This time, her tripled effort finally paid off. She managed to get the disc free, although the sheer amount of force had her propelling backwards and spinning through zero gravity right into…

A loud scream sounded through the ship, startling everyone, who heard it. On the  _ Singularity _ , the remaining crew members were startled by Wanda’s sudden scream. They were even more startled by the sight of the body floating at the helm, which was currently pinning Wanda down.

A closer look at the corpse revealed a horrifying sight. His swollen tongue clogged his gaping, screaming mouth, open in silent agony. His cracked and crystallized skin was criss-crossed by a network of bloated veins. He had no eyes; his eye sockets just a bloody mess.

Nevertheless, Tony couldn’t help but stare at the deeply frozen body. This was exactly like in his dream. Only that he had been the one there without the eyes and not Pierce (he had recognized the  _ Event Horizon’s  _ Captain right away, even in this state).

“What the hell…” Clint whispered, staring at the bodycicle.

“Sorry for the scream. He kind of startled me,” Wanda grunted as she pushed the offending corse away from her. “At least, I think I found one of the crew.”

“ _ Which state is he in? _ ” Fury chimed in from Medical.

“Quick-frozen.”

“ _ I see. Any words from Barnes? _ ” Fury asked his crew.

They were speculating about what had happened to their very own Ötzi the Iceman’s eyes.

“Definitively explosive decompression,” Natasha guessed.

“Nah. That wouldn’t do it. And believe me, I’ve seen cases of explosive decompression before. Not a pretty sight, but it was never like this,” Sharon argued, before Steve held up one hand and shushed her.

“ _ I repeat: Any word from Barnes? I can’t reach... _ ” Fury’s voice asked over the comm speakers.

“He was about to enter the Engineering compartment just a few minutes ago. Shall we try to contact him again?” Sam asked.

“ _ Do that. And keep me informed about his current status _ .”

Steve looked over to Sam, who nodded and hopped down into the airlock bay. Bucky’s safety line was still counting off, reaching almost 200 meters now. Sam took an earpiece from his own suit and put it in his ear. Immediately, he could hear the whole chatter over the comms channel. Sam switched to Bucky’s personal suit channel and began to call him.

“Barnes, do you copy?” he called the young engineer.

No answer.

Sam tried it again.

“Barnes, do you copy?”

No reply.

Now getting a little bit worried, Sam tried it more vigorously.

“Bucky-bear, do you copy? Come on, Mama Bear got a corpsicle for ya...” he lured his younger partner, hoping that Bucky would jump at this opportunity.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

In the Engineering Containment, Bucky had just opened the second Seal and entered the sanctuary. The entrance was more like an alcove, which opened up into a wide chamber. Although it was dark, Bucky could see the richly decorated metal tiles which covered every wall. Once they may have been immaculate. But right now, all the surfaces were coated in a dark gray slick.

Innumerable globules of a strange dark fluid were hanging motionless all over the place. Some were sticking to Bucky’s suit, leeching away his light and swallowing him in darkness. It was eerie and fascinating at the same time.

“ _...do you copy? Come on, Mama Bear got a corpsicle for ya… _ ” Sam’s voice suddenly jerked him back to reality.

“Sam, I’m still here. What’s with a corpsicle?” he asked.

“ _ Thank God. You’re still alive. Don’t do that to an old man, _ ” Sam all but cried in relief. “ _ And Wanda found one of the crew. He doesn’t look that fresh anymore. _ ”

“Whoa. Really?” Bucky exclaimed, while his gaze fell on the control station. It was also coated with the strange fluid.

“ _ Yep. So where the hell are you? Fury tried to reach you, but you didn’t reply. _ ”

Bucky moved closer to the workstation. “Sorry. I was woolgathering. I'm in the Second Containment area right now. It's pitch black in here. And there is liquid everywhere. There must have been a coolant leak. Man, this shit is everywhere. I can't see a damn thing,” he grumbled. “But at least the workstation still has power.”

He carefully wiped the coolant from that station and checked the data.

“The reactor's still hot. Coolant level is on reserve, but still in the green.” He touched the display and worked his way through the programs, until he he found the one he had been looking for and put in a few specific commands.

“Ha, I still got it!” he exclaimed at the same moment as the lights went on, revealing the very special gothic design of the Second Containment (Bucky tried very hard not squeal at that. It was so awesome.). Suddenly, something caught his attention from the corner of his eye and his eyes widened in awe.

“Holy shit...” he breathed, unable to find the right words in sight of something so amazing.

“ _ What’s wrong, Bucky-bear? _ ” Sam’s worried voice asked him.

“I think I just found something…” Bucky’s voice trailed.

Back on the bridge, everyone stared at the massive sphere in the middle of the Second Containment (which happened to be a large, round chamber).

Ten meters in diameter and dominating the center of the chamber.

Intricate Machinery - three freely movable, lighted rings with goddamn spikes on the largest ring - surrounded the otherwise flawless globe, giving it the appearance of an enigmatic monolith.

Black ice encrusted it overall, making it look like a living thing.

It was a breathtaking sight.

“What the hell is that?” Clint whispered.

Tony clapped his hands together. He could barely take off his eyes of his beloved baby.  “That’s, Lady and Gentlemen, is the heart of the  _ Event Horizon. _ This is the Core. The Arc Reactor Gravity Drive.”

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	8. Entering the Core, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky checks the Core. Terrible things happen.

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Everyone on the  _ Singularity  _ was still staring at the “monstrosity” still showing on Bucky’s live feed (except for Tony, who gazed lovingly at his creation, his heart fluttering at the beautiful sight).

“That thing looks so surreal. Are you sure it’s not just my imagination?” Steve whispered, his blue eyes glued to the screen.

A loud snort could be heard over Bucky’s comms and Tony didn’t have to imagine the heavy eye roll which Barnes was likely doing right now. Of what Tony had seen and heard of the young engineer so far, Barnes knew how to appreciate good technology. In a way, he was like a younger combination of him, Bruce and Princess Shuri (God beware, if Barnes and Shuri would ever meet for brainstorming. The results would be simply unthinkable for Man - and Inhumankind.)

“ _ Stevie, I’m standing right in front of this beautiful, absolutely breathtaking piece of technology. Of course, it’s real, _ ” he deadpanned.

“Okay, okay. I believe you.” Steve held his hands up in defense. He wasn’t about to argue with one of their technology experts about this subject.

“ _ Now that we have emphatically stated the existence of the drive, could you check the containment door for radiation leaks, Barnes? _ ” Fury barked over his comm.

“ _ Yes, Sir _ .” 

“ _ Wanda, how’s the stiff? _ ” Fury asked the Med Tech.

“ _ Still a sparkling popsicle, _ ” she replied.

“ _ Barnes, your status quo? _ ” Fury asked his engineer again, waiting for an answer.

 

In the second containment chamber, Bucky had moved closer to the Core and was checking it with his digital Geiger Counter. Luckily, the results were below the allowed radiation limits. After that, he stepped closer and touched one of the rings, running his fingers over the lights and the sparkling texture of the surface. To his surprise, small ripples wandered over the supposedly solid material, indicating a spontaneous change of the phase of matter. Yet another clue that this drive went against all universal laws of physics. He couldn’t wait to tell Shuri all about it during their next conference/movie night.

He stepped back and directed his gaze at the sphere in the middle. It was so impossibly dark. Every single bit of light seemed to be swallowed by the globe. No wonder that he had barely seen anything earlier.

He turned around and was about to go back to the workstation, when static crackled in his earpiece and scraps of conversations trickled through the white noise. 

“ _ Barnes......status quo? _ ” Fury’s demanding voice called out to him, this time clearer. 

“Just finishing my sweep, Sir.” Bucky answered. 

“ _ Then finish it and meet us at the airlock in the central corridor. You got fifteen minutes _ .” 

“Understood. Just gotta finish this…” Bucky grumbled, because of course he’d have loved to spend more time with this awesome technology.

“ _ Do that. See you in... _ ” Fury’s voice was suddenly cut off at the same moment when his helmet lights started to flicker.

 

As did Fury’s in Medical…

As did Wanda’s on the Bridge…

As did the bioscan at Steve’s station, when the readings suddenly went off-scale and everyone on the singularity realized that something was very wrong…

  
Bucky frowned as the lights flickered off and on again, leaving him in twilight. A sudden queasy feeling, his blood instinct, a natural automatism embedded in every single fibre of his being, reared its head as he heard movement behind him, even though it should have been impossible.

He turned around to the Core… and could barely suppress a gasp. 

The three lighted rings had started spinning around the sphere on their own, each one around their respective axes. Slow at first, but then faster and faster...until the rings finally aligned and formed something which looked suspiciously like an artificial aggregation disk. 

His breath hitched when a whole wave of ripples wandered all over the massive globe before disappearing. Then the whole sphere turned black - that kind of black which even light couldn’t penetrate. It was so pitch-dark that he and his white EVA suit stood out like a sore thumb.

Bucky stared at it with wide eyes. So, Stark was right about his invention. He just forgot to mention that he created a black fucking hole to power the vessel - the most powerful thing in the universe. They should get the hell out of there and get away from that ship and this place straightaway.

The worst thing was…

Although Bucky knew that he should leave right away, he couldn’t. It was as if he was almost magically drawn to the sphere. He couldn’t stop walking towards it, step by step. He slowly raised his flesh arm, when he finally stood only centimeters away from the Globe…

...and touched it.

_ Ashes and smoke was everywhere, myriads of sulfur particles turning the sky over Big Island into a surreal, bloody version of an Edvard Munch painting. Sounds of thunder and eruptions drowned out any other noises of birds and animals. _

Bucky's eyes fluttered rapidly and he gasped as his powers caused memories and visions to race through his head.

_ Because this wasn’t an exhibition in a fancy art gallery or an international art show. This was a battlefield only meters away from an active volcano, soldiers from one faction battling against the invading forces. There was danger not only from them, but also from Kilauea and its own hidden perils. It was just as he remembered. _

Bucky just stood there, frozen, unable to move any part of his body, as he was forced to relieve the last day of the Battle of Big Island.

_ This was the final day of the battle. He, Steve, and Sam (whom they had met during the first wave of attack of a CAT bataillon - he had saved their asses, after all) had barricaded themselves in an abandoned house close to the lava fields, the smell of sulfur and melted metals a constant reminder of the active shield volcano nearby. The remaining soldiers of Sam’s squadron were either dead or in the other houses, all of them connected only by Wakanda’s newest radio equipment - the reason why Steve and Bucky had been here in the first place. _

_ The whole situation wasn’t easy, but they were all soldiers and used to it. But the three of them had connected right away and were now sharing battle stories, while they were waiting for backup.  _

_ Suddenly, Steve and Bucky perked up their ears, making Sam tense up. Obviously, they had heard something which he hadn’t.  _

_ One second later, the shooting started, followed by screaming. It started far away from their location and moved quickly towards them. The three soldiers grabbed their weapons and got up. While Bucky moved to the upper floor, Steve hid next to the barricaded window and glanced through a crack between two wooden laths.  _

_ There were only thick black swirls of smoke and mist everywhere, but when the shooting resumed, he could recognize the telltale sign of a muzzle flash, which was very close to their current position. Which meant that they were going to be the next ones. Both men held their breath, waiting for the unknown assailant to appear. _

_ For a long moment, nothing happened.  _

_ Then the fog parted as if by an invisible hand and a heavily armed man stepped through it, moving silently like a ghost. He was clad in heavy, black leather armour and armed to the teeth. But the most disturbing thing was the black muzzle hiding his lower face and the black goggles hiding his eyes, shoulder-length brown hair framing his hidden features; and of course the silver-gleaming, left metal arm, which made him  look like a cyborg.  _

_ Sam and Steve stared at him, not believing their eyes. For a moment, Steve looked upwards, as if silently asking Bucky for help. So they braced themselves for the worst outcome. _

_ But it became much worse. _

_ One moment, the man slowly strode towards their house. At the very moment, where Bucky opened fire at him from his place on the upper floor, the soldier started to speed up and launched himself with a huge jump through the nailed up ground-floor windows, barely missing Steve.  _

_ The Assassin was quick and strong, he had to admit to himself, when he kicked one foot into the armed man’s gut. Just like himself and Bucky. The Assassin made a full body flip and landed gracefully in a crouching position. Steve breathed heavily and waited for the other man to make a move, giving Sam a sign to stay in the back. _

_ Three, four, five heartbeats went by without something happening. Then it all happened very quickly. Before Steve or Sam could react, the Assassin had drawn two long, wicked looking machetes from his back, jumped forwards and shoved him roughly against the wall, nailing him to the wall by pushing the machetes through each shoulder. _

_ Steve screamed out loud, as flashes of unspeakable pain raced through his body. Sam gasped in shock in view of such brutality, but used that opportunity to attack his opponent by emptying both handguns into the Assassin’s back. To his utter shock, it didn’t work. Although he had seen the bullets go through the kevlar, the man was still alive. A normal human being would be dead by now. _

_ Apparently, the attacker was not, in fact, a normal human being. The leather-clad man slowly turned his head towards Sam. He pushed both machetes deeper into the wall, causing Steve to grunt out aloud. Only then, he turned his attention fully on Sam, who tried hastily to reload his guns. The Assassin solved that problem for him with a single, clear shot in the head. _

_ Much to Steve’s dismay, he tried in vain to free himself from the trap he was in. But there must have been something on the machete’s blades, because his limbs kept getting number and number and he could barely move. His thoughts went out to Bucky. He just hoped that he wouldn’t come down here and get away instead. He really didn’t want to his best guy to see him die like this or encounter their attacker. Bucky did deserve to live, after all that he had been through. _

_ Loud footsteps coming down from above shattered that hope. Their attacker stood in the middle of the room, obviously waiting for Bucky to join them. As Bucky arrived, he looked in horror at Sam’s body before his gaze wandered to a bloodied Steve and the black-clad intruder, who looked oh so familiar. He froze and not only his eyes widened, as the Assassin removed his goggles and his muzzle and raised his gun at them - one pointed at Steve and one at Bucky himself. _

_ No, that couldn’t be. This was impossible. And yet, he was there right in front of them - the Assassin, who wore Bucky’s face. _

_ Unable to move, he looked at Steve’s pale face, which was twisted with pain, and found the same look on his best pal’s face he was also wearing - determination and love. Traits, which had been part of them ever since they were little boys in the streets of Brooklyn. Traits which would be part of them until the end of the line. Which was apparently now…. _

_ Both men never left each other’s gaze, as the Assassin version of Bucky pulled both triggers and their worlds went pitch-black…. _

 

Hot tears ran down Bucky’s face, fogging over the inside of his helmet. He was confused. That day on Hawaii...Didn’t they win? And no Winter Soldier had been there. Or had he been? He didn’t know. This dream...Had it been really real or had it been just his past catching up with him? 

It had to be false. He’d rather kill himself before he’d let come any kind of harm to Stevie or Sammy. But what if him being on this vessel was just a dream? That’d mean he had really killed them and that was a fact he couldn’t, wouldn’t live with.

_ “Then just come in to us and everything will be forgotten,” _ a quiet voice whispered to him. 

Bucky stared at the blackness. It was a alluring prospect. Oblivion. Better than living with everlasting pain and guilt. 

As if in trance, Bucky nodded slowly and all a sudden, the void began to swirl in a vortex, sucking the engineer in, before it spat out a gravitational wave, bending the light like a ripple on a pond, pushing wreckage and coolant ahead of itself, surging forward through the First Containment into the main corridor, blowing out emergency lights passing by, flotsam and jetsam spinning around in its wake...

  
On the bridge, Bucky’s live feed ended abruptly as the  _ Singularity  _ started to shake. In the Airlock Bay, Sam stared in confusion and then in shock at Bucky’s safety line, as it started reeling out at an alarming speed - 275 meters, 325 meters, 375 meters and counting.

“Steve, what’s going on?” he yelled upwards.

On the bridge, the loss of Bucky’s feed and the sudden red alert of Bucky’s vital signs screen had spurred everyone into action. Sam’s alarmed shouting didn’t help soothing the situation either. Steve tried desperately to contact his partner, while Nat talked to Fury.

“Buck, can you hear me?” Steve all but shouted over the comms. No reply.

“No, Nick. We lost contact with him,” Nat said over Fury’s private channel to avoid clutter on the main channel.

“ _ I understand...Wait a minute, I’m getting a reaction on my monitor. Keep trying to get in touch with Barnes. Be back in a minute _ .”

Natasha turned her head to Steve, who was now shouting, while Tony watched the spectacle with mixed feeling, anxious fingers playing with the pad which he had placed on a free spot at Bucky’s station. He had an inkling of what was going on, but wasn’t one hundred percent sure of it yet. At least not until Vision had grabbed all the data from Fury’s station at the other ship. Which he had been doing for a few minutes now...

“Buck, please...Can you hear me?” Steve pleaded over the comms.

Still no answer.

Steve let out a desperates sigh and leaned, watching the alarming rise of Bucky’s vital signs on the monitor. 

“Where are you?” he whispered.

  
In the Medical Bay on the Event Horizon, Fury stared at the masses of data that was flooding his workstation. It was running so fast that he couldn’t read anything.

Suddenly he heard a deep roar coming from the belly of the ship. Frowning, he stood up to investigate the strange noise....

...only to be nearly hit by the Medical Bay’s door, as the wave reached his position and literally blew it off of its hinges.

“Fuck!” Fury cursed loudly, as the debris following the wave swallowed him and slammed him into one of the bulkheads, knocking him out for good.  
  


On the  _ Singularity’s _ bridge, Bucky’s feed flickered to life, showing them a brief flash of a screaming face before it was obscured by static and white noise.

Then it went black again. Like all the screens did all of a sudden. Tony had barely time to grab his pad to put it into one of his overall pockets. Its screen was black, too.

Then the gravitational wave hit the  _ Singularity _ . Hard. The vessel started to shake so violently that it threatened to tear the smaller ship apart. Natasha and Clint had to jump back when their consoles exploded with sparks.

While everyone was holding on for dear life, Steve tried to reach their crew members on the other vessel.

“Wanda, Sir, do you copy?” he shouted over the ear-deafening noise.

“We have to get them back!” Natasha yelled, trying to protect her face from the sparks.

“I’m trying, dammit!” Steve yelled back.

Suddenly, one of the racks on the right to Clint’s workstation, which normally held equipment, caught fire. The blond Co-Pilot grabbed the nearest extinguisher and held it at the blaze, a white spray dampening the flames which threatened to jump over to the other consoles.

Downstairs, in the Airlock Bay, Sharon and Sam were also bracing themselves against the bulkhead frame, wondering what the hell was going on.

While trying to regain his balance and eyeing Bucky’s rapidly disappearing safety line, he somehow managed to get to the intercom. Since Steve hadn’t reacted to his shout earlier, he had to try that way.

Touching the display, he shouted over the infernal noise:

“What the hell is going on with you?”

_ “I have no fucking clue. All the screens are dead!”  _ Steve’s voice answered, more than just exasperated.

“I don’t want to worry you, but something must be up with Bucky Bear. His safety line is running out rapidly. He must be in trouble.” Sam stated the obvious.

Silence.

Sam looked at Sharon. Sharon looked back with an annoyed frown on her pale face (she was only annoyed about the current situation). Both of them were having a wordless conversation, before she rolled her eyes and motioned with her head at Sam’s EVA suit.

The rescue technician turned his attention back to the intercom.

“Steve, I don’t know if you can hear me. But I’m going to put on my suit right now and I’m going to go over to look for our little bear,” he told him over the com, his voice steady and determined.

For a long moment, there was nothing but static on the line. Until…

_ “Please get him back, Sam. Just...Just be careful. I can’t lose you both.” _ Steve’s quiet voice gave him his approval.

“Don’t worry. You both won’t get rid of me that fast,” Sam replied, already on his way to his suit.

_ “Thanks, Sam.” _

With Sharon’s help, Sam had his suit within a minute. Peeking out of the airlock window, he took a deep breath, before he grabbed his helmet. Sharon helped him with his headgear, which locked into place with a loud hiss.

“Good luck,” Sharon said with a small smile. Sam saluted her and entered the inner airlock. Just at that moment, Bucky’s safety line finally stopped, jerking taut at 550 meters.

The door closed behind the Rescue Tech. As he made his way over to the other ship, he could only hope that their little bear was alright and this isn't the end of the line for them.

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	9. Entering the Core, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More terrible things happen...

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Fury came to with a loud groan, trying to get his bearings in the darkness after being knocked out by the debris. As soon as he could think straight again, he tried to get in touch with his boarding party. He needed to know what the hell had happened. 

“Wanda, Barnes, do you copy....Wanda, do you copy...Wanda?” he groaned, shaking his head to get rid of the fog that seemed to nestle within his brain.

But no one answered. Fury tried it again. Still no answer. He tried to reach the  _ Singularity _ , only that he got the same results.

He frowned at the absolute radio silence, because this usually meant that something was very wrong. 

 

On the bridge, the wave had also flung Wanda into a corner. As she shook away the dizziness from her brain, she looked up and froze, her eyes widening in shock. Not literally, but close to. The deep-frozen corpse of the man from the original crew, who had been floating in Neptune’s light right in front of her, wasn’t there anymore. 

In his stead, she could see the bare, lanky body of a young, silver-headed man. His arms and legs - bony and thin from disuse. His skin - still crystallized with ice. His eyes on the side - his eyes looked so alive and stared straight at her.

“Pietro…” she whispered into the darkness.

Her hands automatically reached out for the familiar body, her face falling when it floated away from her. Only then, Wanda realized that it was not her brother, but the corpse of the crew member. It hit the door with a bang and burst into thousand pieces, shattering Wanda’s heart at the same time.

 

“Wanda, do you copy…?” Fury’s voice echoed through Medical. The Captain was still sitting on the floor, trying to get in touch with his crew. He was now getting really worried. No word from Wanda, none from Barnes or the  _ Singularity _ . Hopefully, they were still alive. 

“ _ Don’t leave, Sir... _ ” a male voice crackled over the static of the comm.

Fury stiffened and blinked. Had he just heard right?

“Barnes, sound off…...Barnes, do you copy? Barnes...” he dismissed the strange, but well-known voice as an imagination of his current stressed state.

He trailed off, when a red light flickered over his visor, turning his attention to the right side.

Fury took a shaky breath, when he caught sight of the burning figure over there by the door - an obviously male shape engulfed in blazing orange and red flames, his eyes like two umbrae on the surface of the sun. 

The burning man suddenly moved towards Fury and the Captain could see charcoal-black bones and flesh poke through the fire. Hell, even the warmth felt real. The man stalked towards Fury and raised one hand, pointing it accusingly at the Captain. Fury’s breath was caught up in his throat and for a moment he forgot how to breathe, let alone speak. His mouth was working, but not a single word came out of it.

He blinked…

...and blinked again. And as fast as it had appeared, just as fast the vision was gone.

Fury stared at nothing, breathing hard. Maybe it was official now. He had truly lost his mind.

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Sam entered the main corridor of the Event Horizon the same way the others did. Only that he wasn’t heading for the bridge, but straight into the opposite direction, following Bucky’s safety line right into the First Containment Chamber. After passing what Bucky had lovingly called the “Tunnel of Dizzying Terror” (Because honestly...who the hell had come up with such an invention), he entered the Second Containment Chamber at full speed, only catching himself at the console.

Wide brow eyes were full of terror, when he looked up at that monstrosity of a drive and saw only Bucky’s safety line, which was cut off by the strange, somehow liquid looking blackness of the Core.

“Oh god…” Sam whispered in disbelief. Where was he? Where was their Bucky-Bear?

Suddenly, the surface of the Core rippled again. As if someone had thrown a pebble into a pond…

...and as if by an invisible hand, Bucky appeared from the impenetrable darkness, his ghostlike white suite riding a second wave of thick blackness.

Sam didn’t even hesitate for a second. He grabbed Bucky from the middle of the wave, cradling him close to his chest, as the second wave carried them towards the wall. From the corner of his eyes, he suddenly saw a long metal spike - a control rod from the looks of it -  coming at them. Mobilising all of his strength, Sam twisted his body, and pulled them both - only barely - out of reach of the potential deadly weapon, before slamming into a wall.

Immediately, streaks of pain shot down his spine, and Sam groaned, when he thought about the bruises he’d surely get because of this little stunt. Damn Super Soldiers and their Super Healing.

Sam looked down at the precious bundle in his arms. Bucky’s head lolled to side, a clear sign that he was unconscious. His normally healthy tan had made way for a ghostly white pallor.

It made Sam’s heart hurt like hell to see his little bear like this. Pulling him closer, waiting for the wave to die down, he whispered:

“Please, Bucky Bear. Don’t do this to me...to Steve...to us…You have to hold on for us...Just don’t do this.” 

Bucky gave no answer.

But Sam hoped he had heard him anyway. 

 

On the  _ Singularity _ , everyone was still holding on tightly, as the vessel continued to shake and to shudder with the second wave coming in, vibration building up and up.

“We got another one coming in. Hold on!” Steve shouted over the noise.

“Really? I haven’t noticed,” Clint shouted back sarcastically.

Then, the wave hit them with full force. Spark flew as Natasha’s and Clint’s stations almost exploded. Deep in the bowels of the ship, metal screamed, followed by the unmistakable shriek of escaping atmosphere.

“Shit!” Steve cursed and looked at Tony. “Stark, can you check Bucky’s station?”

The engineer nodded and turned his head to glance at the incoming data.

“We lost the starboard baffle! And it looks like the hull's been breached!” he yelled back at the Commander.

“Fuck!” Steve muttered. A loud screech turned their attention to the bridge’s pressure door, which had just began to close…

...only to stop.

“Derr`mo!” Natasha swore. “The safety circuit has failed!

“We must be losing atmosphere!” Tony stated, his fingers flying over the touchscreen.

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Of course, something like this had to happen. At first, Bucky, and now this. Unfortunately, only one option remained right now.

“Nat, get everyone into the pressure suits. They should keep us alive, until we have figured a way out of this situation.”

Natasha nodded and grabbed Tony’s arm, guiding him none too gently to the ladder, which led to the airlock bay, Clint and Steve on their heels. 

  
Back in the Medical Bay on the Event Horizon, Fury had recovered a bit from his ‘supernatural’ encounter and was trying again to get in touch with his crew.

“Can anybody hear me…?” He tried to get a response out of the silent comm channel. “Wanda…? Barnes…? Anybody…?”

“ _ Nick… _ ” Wanda’s shaky voice finally came through.

Fury leaned back, sighing in relief. Finally a sign of life. 

“Thank goodness! I couldn’t reach anyone. Are you alright, Wanda?” he inquired.

 

On the Bridge, Wanda stared at the shattered remains of the frozen corpse, which were now floating amidst the red blood mist, before she answered: “I’m fine!”

Her facial expression said the exact opposite.

 

Fury could hear that Wanda wasn’t fine. But right now was neither the time nor the place to take Wanda’s emotional turmoil into account. He wanted to know what had happened and if his ship was alright.

Slowly but steadily, the reports from the others trickled in.

“ _...Sir, we have a man down… _ ” Sam’s frantic voice radioed him.

Fury sighed. Another catastrophe? Wouldn’t be the first one. Somehow, this whole job seemed cursed.

“Wilson, where are you?”

“ _...Second Containment…Sir, Barnes is down... _ ” Wilson’s worried voice replied.

“Hold on, Wilson…” Fury started to reply, just as Clint finally got through.

“ _ Skipper…? _ ” 

Fury had never been so glad to hear the man’s natural sarcastic voice. Not that he’d ever admit it to his face.

“Barton, where the fuck have you been?” he barked.

“ _ Sorry, but we have kind of a situation here. _ ” 

Fury groaned internally. He sensed that Barton was about to drop another bomb on him. “What kind of situation?”

  
In the Singularity’s Airlock Bay, Clint was reporting to Fury, while Steve and Natasha climbed into their EVA suits. Unsurprisingly, when the four of them had arrived from the bridge, Sharon had already come to the same conclusion and had put on her suit, so that she could assist Tony with his.

“We lost the starboard baffle and the hull cracked. Our safety seals didn't close, the circuit's fried --” he recited into his earpiece while he struggled with his suit, until Natasha took pity and helped him.

  
Back on the Event Horizon, Fury finally got up, if only a bit sluggish. An EVA suit wasn’t exactly built for great mobility. Only then, he counted down from ten to one, trying to calm himself down. He had to keep his cool right now. His ship was wounded and him freaking out wouldn’t help her getting healthy again.

“Okay, do we have time for a weld?” he asked, already heading for the main corridor.

“ _ Sorry to say that, skipper, but we don’t even have time to fart. _ ”

Fury moved further down the corridor, avoiding the floating rubble. 

“ _ We're losing pressure at 300 liters a second and our oxygen tanks are all cracked. In three minutes, our whole atmosphere will be gone. We are so fucking screwed. _ ”

“Well, no one will die on my watch. What about the reserve tanks?” 

“ _ Gone. Weg. Proch', _ ” Clint announced in three different languages.

Fury just wanted to hit his head on something. With the reserve tanks gone, there weren’t so many options now. So what could they do?

  
On the Bridge, Wanda had listened to the conversation. She knew that there was only one place, where they could stay, while they had to repair the Singularity. Although she didn’t like the idea of staying here - that ship gave her the creeps - at the moment, it was the best resolution.

Sighing, she got up and looked for the life support console. She found it next to the main control. Wanda sat down and wiped away the red icicles, studying the display, before she started to work on bringing back gravity and atmosphere.  

 

On the  _ Singularity _ , Steve, Sharon, Natasha and Clint were just as clueless what to do. They were all in their suits now, including helmet, thinking about solutions how to proceed now. However, neither of them thought about the most obvious answer to this problem. Except for Tony…

“Isn’t it obvious? We should go over to the Event Horizon,” he said. 

The four crew members stared at him as if he had grown two more heads, although Natasha and Sharon looked more like they just had had an epiphany or a why-didn’t-we-think-of-this-moment.

“What?” Clint demanded.

Tony rolled his eyes.

“It still has air and reserve power. We could activate gravity and life support and hold out until you have repaired your ship,” he pointed out.

“But what if the air has gone bad?” Steve asked. “We can't wear these suits forever.”

“The only way to find out is to go over there. And it certainly beats dying, Mr. Barton,” Tony stated.

“I still don't think this is a good idea. I mean we don't even know what happened on that ship…” Clint argued.

“ _ Mr. Stark is right. Unfortunately… _ ” Fury grumbled over the comm. “ _ Get aboard the Event Horizon. I'll meet you there at the airlock. _ ”

“But…” Clint protested, because he really didn’t want to go over to the scary ship. Only when Natasha clapped him on his suited shoulder with a chuckled “Let’s go, solnishko,” he gave in.

“ _ Listen to Natasha, Barton. She’s always right. _ ” 

“Don’t I know it…” the blond Co-Pilot muttered, before he followed the others in the umbilicus.

“ _ I heard that. Wanda, are you still with me? I need you to bring the life support system back online. _ ”

  
On the bridge, Wanda couldn’t help but smirk a little. What did Nick think she was doing the whole time? Twiddling her thumbs?

“Already at it. Bringing the thermal units online now….” she replied, her gloved right hand flipping a series of circuit-breakers. Old-fashioned, but better to handle when wearing a suit.

“Good thinking,” Fury praised her.

“Okay, I’m almost done. You better prepare for the big G,” Wanda warned them, before she flipped the last switch.

Within a split second, all the lights went on and everything not nailed down, which had been floating all around, crashed down to the floor. Only now, Wanda realized the excess of the frozen blood, which had been hanging around all over the bridge. 

It was everywhere. 

Whatever had happened here, it had been a real massacre.

  
Fury was relieved to see that everyone of his crew made over here in one piece, although Barton didn’t look too happy. The Captain couldn’t blame him. This whole place was friggin’ intimidating. Stark, on the other side, looked like he had hit the jackpot. But he was probably the only one, who was thrilled to be here on this ship.

“Is everybody okay?” he asked around. All of them nodded silently.   
  
“I guess so, since we're all here.” Steve deadpanned.

Fury threw him a look, which clearly said that this wasn’t the right time for sarcasm.    
  
“Okay. Then let's find out how much time we just bought for ourselves.” Fury replied, before he reached for the catch on his own helmet. Not only Steve and Sharon almost doubled over, when they realized his intention.   
  
“You can’t do that, Nick. We haven't tested the air yet. It could be contaminated for all we know…” the doctor hissed.

“No time for that. Besides, we need whatever's left in our suits to repair the  _ Singularity _ . If you like it or not, this is the only oxygen between here and home.” he countered.

Sharon huffed, but let him concede. Fury took a deep breath, pulled his helmet off with a loud HISS. He breathed deep with the others watching him cautiously. When he showed no sign of suffocating, Sharon did the same, coughing when she took her first breath without her helmet.   
  
“Ewww, it tastes really bad.” She shuddered in disgust, her face twisted in obvious displeasure at the foul smelling mixture of sweat, blood and rotten eggs.    
  
“But you can breathe it,” he pointed out.

Sharon rolled her eyes and walked over to help Tony out of his suit, since the others had decided to follow their examples, now that the danger of suffocating had passed. They also scrunched up their faces in disgust with Clint occasionally making gagging noises, until Natasha cuffed him.

Time to ask the most important question.

“So, does anyone know where Buck and Sam are?” Steve demanded. If anything had happened to his partners, he needed to know.  
  


In the Second Containment, Sam was leaning against the tiled wall, holding a still unconscious Bucky in his arms. Both of them were drenched with the coolant, ever since the newly activated gravity had let it splash down on them a few minutes ago.

But Sam didn’t care about their dirty suits. He just cared about the motionless person right here in his arms, whispering “I love you”, “Please don’t leave us” and “Please be strong for us” into Bucky’s ear.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Sam finally roused himself to get up, never letting go of his precious cargo. He stumbled his way out of the engineering unit and into the main corridor.

High time to find the others.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	10. Stranded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Looks like they aren't able to get away from the ship.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

The  _ Singularity  _ and the  _ Event Horizon _ were in Neptune’s orbit, locked together in an intimate embrace, dancing amidst the tempest they were in. Now that the  _ Event Horizon was _ no longer hiding in darkness, the ship was showing all its ugly glory. A predator made of metal - a nightmare in steel.

Inside, everyone had assembled on the bridge and sprawled on the free spaces not covered in blood or chunks of human flesh. They didn’t look too happy about sitting here in the middle of a more than obvious crime scene. All the while, Tony went from station to station, restoring power and functions of the ship.

Steve was sitting at the comm station, checking the current status of the vessel, although he itched to get to the Engineering Unit. “So, here is our current status. The antenna arrays are completely fried. We've got no radio, no laser, no high gain...Nothing. No one's going to be coming to help us.”   


Fury sighed. 

“How much oxygen do we have?” he probed.    
  
“Oxygen is not the problem.”    
  
“Carbon dioxide?”

Steve nodded.    
  
“It's building up with every breath we take. And the Carbon Dioxide filters on this ship are definitely shot.”   
“We could take the filters from the  _ Singularity  _ for the time being…” the Captain suggested.

Steve nodded again in agreement. “I already thought of that. With the filters from the  _ Singularity _ , we've got enough breathable air for twenty hours. After that…” Steve paused, not wanting to speak out loud what they all were thinking.

“...we'd better be on our way home.” Fury finished the sentence. Because after this time period, their chances for survival were close to non-existent.

“Well, in that case, Clint and I are getting back on the  _ Singularity _ to fetch those filters, before we’d like to obtain an overview of all the damages.” Natasha declared loudly, the tone of her accented voice making it more than clear that the both of them weren’t bent on spending more time on board than really necessary.   
  
“Good. Do that!” Fury approved. Natasha got up from the place where she had been sitting with Clint, the both of them now communicating with only their facial expressions before they headed for the door. Fury turned his attention back to Steve, arms crossed right in front of his chest.

“What about the life readings you picked up?” he asked.   
  
“The  _ Event Horizon _ sensors show the same thing as on the our ship. "Bio-readings of  indeterminate origin. Right before that wave hit us, there was some kind of surge, right off the scale. But now it's back to its previous levels.”

Fury scratched his chin.   
  
“Do you know what's causing the readings?”   
  
“I don't know. But whatever it is, it's definitely not the crew.” Steve shrugged his shoulders.   
  
Fury frowned in concentration, as he thought about the possible origins of such readings. Maybe a technical failure? Or…? There was a second possibility, which would certainly explain these huge amounts of gore all over the ship.

“So the big question is: Where is the rest of the crew? We've been over every centimeter of this goddamn ship and all we've found is blood. And more blood.” he turned to Tony. “Mr. Stark? Any suggestions?”   
  
Stark just stared at the bloodstained wall. Fury huffed and turned back to his crew. No answer was an answer.    
  
“What happened here?” Fury whispered to himself.

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside. Everyone could hear Sam’s frantic cries for help. Steve didn’t think twice. He jumped up from his seat and was out of the door, before Fury even had opened his mouth to give an order. The Captain just motioned his head at Sharon, his eyes never leaving Tony. 

The doctor nodded, fully understanding Fury’s hesitance to leave Stark all by himself on the bridge. It wasn’t as if he didn’t trust him. But he didn’t. Fury was that kind of man, whose trust one had to earn. They all had done that, but Stark hadn’t. And their current situation didn’t help assure that either.

She followed Steve outside, taking Wanda with her, since her partner still looked a little bit pale from all the blood.

They found the three of them right there at the Gravity Couch Bay. Sam was slumped on the floor, looking completely drained. He was still holding Bucky’s motionless body, while Steve’s fingers fumbled with the lock of his helmet. Finally, with a loud clang, the heavy helmet clattered to the floor.

Steve ran two of his fingers over Bucky’s ashen face, his face falling, when the brunette showed no reaction. His skin is so cold, he thought. Wouldn’t be the first time that Buck tried to live up to his other name.

Sharon touched Steve’s tensed up shoulder and gently guided him aside, so that she could take a look at him. To her relief, she found a strong pulse. Which meant he wasn’t dead...but from the looks of it, he seemed to be in some kind of coma. But she couldn’t say more until after a few more tests.

Sharon reported back to Fury, who told her to bring Bucky into Medical (including directions) and send Steve back to the bridge. Steve protested at first, but gave in after Sharon told that there was nothing he could do right now. Although he made Sam promise to report back, should there be any change.

Sam’s only answer was an eye roll and a loud “Yes, mom”.

Only then, Steve was satisfied enough that he was willing to get back to the bridge.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

The New Great Dark Spot was prominently visible on the dayside. In its midst, the tiny ship was barely visible. Only when you got closer, you could see the  _ Event Horizon _ in all its horrific glory, hanging askew in the center of the hurricane like a particle in God's eye.   
  
The Singularity clung to the giant craft as insignificant as a tick. Two even smaller figures clung to the hull of smaller vessel...   
  
After fetching the filters from the Singularity, Natasha and Clint had gone out into the tempestuous weather to look after the damage the wave had done to their ship. Wearing their EVAs in full protective gear, their magnetic boots were the only thing which kept them from being flown off into the storm and held them to the  _ Singularity's _ hull. Both of them knelt over a large hole in the hull, where the metal had been buckled and torn. Vapor still leaked from the hole into space.

“Awww, hole, no.” Clint moaned, as he observed the damage. He turned his head to Natasha. “This is bad, isn’t it?”

Natasha didn’t answer, but her expression said enough. Clint sighed and opened a comm channel.

“Skipper, you copy?” he tried to contact his captain.   
  
“ _ I'm here, Barton. How's our ship? _ ”    
  
“We've found a sixteen centimeter fracture in the outer hull. We should be able to repair it and re-pressurize, but it's gonna take some time.”   
  
“ _ We don't have time, Barton. In twenty hours, we run out of air. _ ”

Clint sighed. Fury surely knew how to motivate someone.   
  
“Understood.” He ended the conversation. “Nat, give me my gun.”

Natasha smirked, before she pulled a Zero-G nail gun out of her utility belt, let it twirl a few times around her right ring finger. Only then, she passed it to Clint. He waited, until Natasha had used a foam applicator to fill the hole. The gel froze immediately in place. Then, Clint pressed the nail gun to the patch and began to rivet it into place.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

In the Medical Bay, Bucky lay unmoving on an examination table. His eyes were open now, staring at a smear of blood on the ceiling. Somewhere on the way to Medical, Bucky had dramatically gasped, before his eyes had flown open. Sharon and Sam both held their breath, hoping that their engineer would wake up.

Instead, much to Sam’s disappointment, Bucky reverted back to the catatonic state he was now in. While Wanda and Sam stayed in the back, observing them from afar, Sharon had found some clean equipment that she used to test his responsiveness. After checking his reflexes, she carefully slid a needle into the skin below his eye to test his reaction to pain. Bucky didn't respond.   
  
Sharon sighed and removed the needle, which was glistening with blood. Looking up, she saw Fury standing there, looking concerned at his engineer for once.   
  
“How is he?” he wanted to know.   
  
“His vitals are stable, but he's unresponsive to stimuli. He might wake up in fifteen minutes. Or he might not wake up at all. I have no idea what happened to him.” 

And it was the truth. She had tried it the traditional way, had used her healing powers. Nothing had helped. Whatever had put Bucky in this catatonic state, it had no physical cause.   
  
“Any ideas how we can find out what happened?” Fury asked as he eyed the other two in the room.   
  
Sharon shook his head. As did Sam, who looked at Bucky with great worry. 

“I could try to get into his head, see if I can get some answers.” Wanda piped up from her place. Not only Sharon, but also Fury and Sam looked at her in surprise, because usually she didn’t like to get into people’s heads. Because she never knew what to expect inside. Obviously, it was different with Bucky. Although it wasn’t really a surprise, since Bucky had always viewed her as some long lost little sister.

“Fine, do it. But be careful!” Fury told her in a fond voice.

Wanda just nodded, still looking at Bucky’s still form.

Fury turned his head back to Sharon, his eyes eyeing the bloodstain above them.   
  
“Oh Sharon, while you’re at it...Take samples from these stains, compare them to medical records. I want to know whose blood this is.”

“Will do.” 

She waited, until Fury was gone, before she let out a deep breath. She looked at Wanda, asking her silently if she really wanted to take that risk. The brunette woman moved from her spot close to the examination table, taking Sharon’s gloved hand. 

“I am.” she squeezed it slightly, doing her very best to reassure her partner that everything was going to be alright.

“Good. Then let’s proceed.” 

Sam and Sharon rolled over three chairs, because of safety reasons. Wanda sat down on the head of the table, facing Bucky’s open eyes. Sam sat at the side, holding Bucky’s hand, while Sharon hovered protectively behind Wanda.

The younger woman took a deep breath, placed her hands on Bucky’s temples. She breathed in and out, slowly, until her hands started to glow. Red swirls of light emitted from them, jumped over to the unconscious man on the table, penetrated into his head, raced along the neural circuit into his brain, connected the broadcaster with the receiver.

Wanda gasped. Her eyes widened, as she fell through a chasm into the darkness of Bucky’s mind, showing her flashes of something evil.

_ Darkness. _

_ Eternal Darkness. _

_ Finally, a speck of light.  _

_ A photon sphere. _

_ And an aggregation disc. _

_ Jets blasting out of the middle of the nothingness. _

_ A black hole. _

_ She has just fallen out of a supermassive black hole. _

_ The winds and the heat are barely tolerable. _

_ A little bit away from her - a black-clad, muzzled figure. _

_ She doesn’t like his aura - so cold, so cruel. _

_ It’s suffocating her. _

_ He sees her. _

_ She freezes. _

_ He takes off his muzzle. _

_ She gasps. _

_ It’s Bucky. _

_ A Bucky that’s the complete opposite from the one she knows. _

_ He moved towards her with murder in his stride. _

_ She skids away from him.  _

_ Closer to the Event Horizon - the point of no return. _

_ Just like the ship. _

_ Bucky’s murderous doppelganger had now reached her. _

_ Attacks her with a silver metal arm, wearing a red Russian star. _

_ She tries to defend herself. _

_ Throws a red lasso of light at him. _

_ Misses. _

_ Assassin Bucky kicks her with supernatural strength beyond the Event Horizon. _

_ She gets sucked in. _

_ She falls, her body getting spaghettified until nothing is left. _

_ Darkness. _

With a loud gasp, Wanda jerked her hands back from Bucky, her whole body shaking at the still-clear images in her head.

“Wanda? You okay?” Sharon carefully asked from behind, placing a gentle hand on Wanda’s shoulder.

That pulled Wanda out of her trance. She looked at Sam and then at Sharon with frightened eyes, before they rolled back into the back of her head and she slid powerless from the chair, unconscious before she even hit the floor.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	11. Hallucinations

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Eighteen hours left.

  
The  _ Event Horizon _ and the  _ Singularity  _ are still floating in Neptune’s stormy atmosphere. On the  _ Event Horizon’s _ bridge, gravity has scattered wreckage and most of the blood crystals all way through the room. Everyone - except for Nat and Clint, who were still outside doing repairs - was gathered there, still looking weary and uncomfortable while sitting on dead men’s chairs.

Sam was sitting next to Steve, throwing a small ball up and down, while Steve sat stiffly on his chair, his mind clearly elsewhere. Sharon was the same. With a blank expression, her arms crossed in front of her chest, she stared into the blue mist. As did Fury, while also watching his pilots on a screen. Only Tony seemed more relaxed than he had been on the  _ Singularity _ , patting the dirtied surfaces lovingly like a lover would do. 

Fury found it strange, but chose to keep it in the back of my mind for now. Then he turned to face the rest of his crew.

“Okay, guys, there's been a change in the mission. In less than eighteen hours, we will run out of breathable air. Our primary objective is now survival. That means we focus on repairing the  _ Singularity  _ and salvaging whatever will buy us more time.” He paused before continuing. 

“Our secondary objective is finding out what the hell happened to this ship and its crew. Three months from now, I fully intend to be standing in front of His Highness and Dr. Banner giving my report. And I'd like to have more than just my dick in my hands.”   
  
He could see grim smiles on the other’s faces.    
  
“Wilson, I want you to go through the ship's log, see if you can find some answers.”   
  
“We can use the station in Medical, keep an eye on Barnes and Wanda…” he suggested.

Fury nodded in agreement, before he turned to Steve.   
  
“Rogers, I want you to repeat the bioscan-”   
  
“What's the point? I'll just get the same result!” Steve exploded. 

Fury huffed. “If you’d let me finish the sentence… I want to know, what's causing those readings. If the crew is dead, I want the bodies… I want  the crew to be found.”   
Steve sighed and slumped his shoulders.

“I guess I could reconfigure the scan to look for C-12 - amylase proteins,” he muttered.   
  
“Do it. Mr. Stark…” Fury addressed the other engineer, his deep voice drawling. 

Tony’s head perked up. He blinked and looked at Fury, as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep.   
  
“Yes…?” he asked.    
  
“Mr. Stark, one of my men is down. I want to know what happened to him.” he demanded to know.

Sam barged in.

“I already told you. He was inside that Core…”   
  
Tony made a face and started shaking his head in denial.

“That’s ridiculous.” he muttered, but more to himself.   
  
“It was like...nothing was there...and then Bucky Bear appeared and the Core... became metal…” Sam continued, shaking his head. Those pictures in his head...Bucky being so unresponsive...They were hard to forget.   
  
“No, he didn't.” Tony cut him off, making the usually calm Sam angry.   
  
“You weren't there. I saw it!” he shouted.

Tony scoffed at him. “Saw what, Mr. Wilson? What did you really see? Because what you're describing is not physically possible.”   
  
With a roar, Sam threw the ball at him…hard. Tony ducked. The ball bounced wildly around the room, until Fury caught it.   
  
“Alright! That’s enough with the dick measuring contest. Wilson, calm down. Stark, stop antagonizing my crew,” he barked.   
  
Sam huffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Tony did the same. Fury turned to Tony.   
  
“Mr. Stark, Barnes may die. Whatever happened to him could happen to all of us. So if you know something about the crírcumstances of his ‘accident’, we have a right to know.”   
  
Silence. Then…    
  
“I don't know what happened to Barnes.” he muttered.   
  
“I'm telling you, I saw it-” Sam started anew, but Tony interrupted him again.   
  
“What you saw could have been an optical effect caused by gravitational distortion.”   
  
Sam made a face. Was that guy deaf or did he think that they all were a little dumb ?

“I know what I saw and it wasn't a fucking ‘optical effect!’” he hissed, before he got interrupted again, this time by Fury.   
  
“Hold on, what's this ‘gravitational distortion?’”   
  
Tony sighed. “It's possible that a burst of gravity waves escaped from the Core, distorting spacetime. They could be what hit the  _ Singularity _ .”   
  
“What could cause them?”   
Tony didn’t answer, prompting Fury to inquire further.   


“What's exactly in the Core?” he all but pressed, his single eye drilling a hole into Tony.   
  
“It's complicated…” he muttered, shifting uncomfortably in his chair under Fury’s probing gaze.

  
“Then enlighten us, Mr. Stark. How much time do you need? We have seventeen hours and forty-two minutes. Now: what is in the Core?”   
  
Silence. It was so quiet that they could hear the howling of the Neptune winds inside. Then, Tony dropped the bomb.

  
“A black hole.”    
  
The crew stared at him as if he had grown two more heads, absolutely stunned at Tony’s confession.

“A WHAT?”

 

In Medical, Wanda quietly groaned as she came to at last, and found herself on an examination table, a folded blanket under her head acting as a pillow. From the corner of her eyes, she could spot Sharon in a corner huddled together with Sam, speaking rapidly in an angry, hushed tone. Obviously, something must have happened while she was out.

“An artificial black hole. Is he completely nuts? Makes us sit on such a massive timebomb and then denies that it actually works. I know what I saw,” the black man hissed angrily.

Sharon nodded in agreement. “And to be honest, I don’t like the vibe on this ship. It’s like… As if we are foreign bodies and the ship is trying to get rid of us.”

Sharon frowned. “You think that what happened with Bucky was an immune defense reaction from the ship?”

“I know it sounds crazy. But it’s what I feel about this,” he answered, gesturing at everything and nothing.”

Wanda let Sam’s words sink in. Remembering what she had seen inside Bucky’s head, those words suddenly didn’t sound so crazy anymore. Something was off here and it would certainly better if they left the vessel as soon as possible.

She decided to make her presence known and let out a louder groan. Immediately, the talking stopped and hurrying footsteps approached, one pair lighter than the other. Not even one second later, two faces appeared in her field of view, looking very relieved.

“Oh my god, you’re okay,” Sharon all but cried. She helped Wanda sit upright, pulled her in a tight hug, before she let go and punched her partner’s shoulder gently. “That was for scaring me like that.”

Wanda winced, but couldn’t find it in herself to blame Sharon. She had scared her, not only by volunteering to use her powers, but also by falling unconscious after.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, looking down on the floor. Sharon sighed and pulled her into another hug.

“So, did you see something?” Sam asked from where he was standing at Bucky’s side. Wanda looked at her quasi surrogate brother, still not believing what darkness lurked within his mind.

“Darkness,” she whispered. “Lots of… A masked man in black, wearing a silver metal arm with a red Russasian Star… And a black hole. I was on the aggregation disk of a black hole and… And he pushed me in. I don’t know why. It’s so confusing.” 

Sam and Sharon exchanged meaningful glances. 

“You can talk out loud, you know. I heard your conversation. And I think… I think you may be right, Sam. Although I still don’t know why that man looked like Bucky.”

Sam inhaled sharply, before he looked at both women. “I think that’s something Steve should explain,” he said cryptically.

Wanda and Sharon blinked in surprise. What did Steve have to do with Wanda’s dream?

“Okayyy…” Wanda drawled. Then she looked around. “Where is he even?”

Sam snorted. 

“With Stark and Fury, taking a look at Stark’s black hole.”

  
Inside the Second Containment, Fury, Steve and Tony stood before the Core. Dark ominous structures loomed around them, glistening with unfrozen coolant. The  heartbeat of the ship was a strong and loud presence here, a deep thrumming that stole their breaths. But for Tony, it was a sweet sound, the angelic chorus of his own technology. It was home.

“See, that's how the gravity drive works. It focuses the black hole's immense gravitational power to create the gateway. That's how the  _ Event Horizon _ manages to travel faster than light,” Tony whispered in a reverent voice.

Steve stared at the monstrosity in front of them. “I can't believe we actually built this,” he muttered.   
  
Fury shook his head and secretly wondered how in the world T’Chaka could have agreed to participate in building such an abomination. “This is insane.”   
  
Tony choked and glared at Fury.

“Did you just call this fine piece of machinery ‘insane?’ The finest astronauts fought to be posted to this ship. It would take your  _ Singularity  _ a thousand years to reach our closest star. The  _ Event Horizon _ on the other side… She could be there in a day.”   
  
“Assuming it would work,” Fury pointed out.

Tony coughed. “Right, if it worked.”    
  
They stared at the Core, the surrounding machinery moving in a perfectly synchronized, slow giant's dance. Steve and Fury frowned, as something moved inside the core. Just a trick of the eye, or why did it feel as if the Core was staring back at them?

Steve suddenly got a strange feeling in his gut. Surely it had been just his imagination. Machinery couldn’t be alive. Could it? His train of thoughts was abruptly interrupted by static on his private comms channel. He turned away to listen to Sam, his face staying stoic. Only when he was finished, he turned his attention back to the Core.

Meanwhile, Fury had come to a decision.

“I want this room sealed,” he ordered. “The Second Containment is off limits for the time being.”

Tony’s eyes widened in surprise and his head snapped to the side to face Fury. “But there's no danger. The black hole is contained behind three magnetic fields, it's under control.”   
  
Fury sighed in frustration. “Your black hole damn near ripped my ship apart. It may have killed one of my men.  _ IT IS DANGEROUS.  _ No one goes near that thing.”

“But…” Tony protested.

Fury turned to Steve. “No one,” he ordered. “And if Mr. Stark thinks otherwise, take all the precautionary measures you see fit to prevent him from entering this unit without me.”

Steve nodded, but had another request.

“Sir, Sam just told me that Wanda has woken up. I’d like to ask her if she has seen something that could help us with Bucky’s condition.”

“Do that. Report to the bridge after.” Fury agreed, before he turned and waited for Tony to follow him. “Mr. Stark, do you need an invitation?”

Tony huffed in annoyance. He threw a last longing glance at his baby, promising himself and her that he’d be back soon, before he walked out of the containment, Fury and Steve hot on his heels.   
  
Neither of them felt the lingering darkness and heard the longing whispers, calling them to them.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Wanda sat in front of the computer workstation in Medical, running the ship's log, forwarding through hours of boring footage. She had taken over from Sam, who had gotten a totally natural need to relieve himself. Rubbing her eyes, she could barely suppress a yawn. Except for her little syncopal attack, they all had been awake for almost twenty hours now and boring tasks suddenly got very tiring.   


The lights above her flickered.   
  
She heard something rustling behind her. Thinking it was Bucky, who was finally waking up, she turned around..   
  
“Bucky...?”   
  
To her surprise, the person in question still lay unmoving on the nearest examination table. Still comatose. 

Wanda shivered, reached out and picked up a scalpel from Sharon’s small table.   
  
Just then, she heard the sound again, her eyes widening, as she recognized the cruel sound - Fingernails on plastic. What the hell was going on? She got up and slowly moved past Bucky...   
  
...past several empty tables, all of them covered with clear plastic...   
  
...to the last table. Her breath hitched, as she stares in shock at it.   
  
Because there was clearly something underneath the plastic cover. Despite all of her senses screaming danger, she slowly reached out, lifted the cover, and gasped in shock.   
  
Her twin brother Pietro looked at her and giggled. His torso was still full of scars, from where the shrapnel had severed nerve cords and bundles of muscles.

Dropping the scalpel to the floor at her feet, Wanda stumbled backward.   
  
To her surprise, his crippled arms reached up to her, as if he was waiting to be picked up, whispering “Wanda” over and over again in that well-known voice.   
  
For a moment, Wanda was sorely tempted to pull her brother in a strong hug. If it weren’t for the plastic that still covered his withered legs, which squirmed like a bag full of poisonous snakes...   
  
Wanda dropped the plastic like a blazing hot piece of metal and backed away, breathing heavily.   
  
“Wanda? You okay?” Sharon’s voice pulled her out of her train of thoughts.   
  
She turned her head towards the source of the voice, her eyes wide like a deer caught up in the headlights. Her partner was standing in the doorway, holding blood samples, Sam and Steve right behind her.   
  
Wanda turned back to the table, but Pietro was gone. Had all of this just been her imagination? A product of her sleep-deprived mind?

Sharon read her expression. Something must have happened during their absence.    
  
“What's wrong?” Sharon asked carefully, putting the samples aside.

Wanda closed her eyes, trying to calm down her racing heart.   
  
“Nothing. It's nothing. I just thought I had seen something,” she whispered, and went  back to the workstation.

Sharon’s expression said that she clearly thought otherwise, but she let the subject drop for now. “Wanda, honey, Steve’s here to ask you about what you saw. And didn’t you want to ask him something, too?”

Still looking a bit distraught, Wanda joined the three of them at Bucky’s table. Both men were sitting at each side of their partner, holding his cold, sweaty hands, caressing his knuckles with loving tender strokes.

“So, did you see something?” Steve asked with a hopeful and desperate expression on his tired face.

Wanda sighed, then told Steve everything she had seen. The blond commander blanched at the mention of the masked assassin. 

“Oh god, not this again!” he moaned. At Wanda’s and Sharon’s questioning gazes, he looked at Sam, who gave him an encouraging nod. Steve sighed.

“There’s something that you don’t know about me and Bucky. Only a few select people know what I’m going to say to you.” He took a breath before he continued. “Bucky and I… we go way back longer than you officially know. We met in Brooklyn, New York, but not in the 2030’s. We met in the 1920’s - over one hundred years earlier.”

Wanda and Sharon exchanged glances.

“But that would make you…” Sharon glanced at the blond man.

“...150 years old. I know. Buck’s just one year younger than I am.” 

“But that’s impossible, even in our world.”

Steve sighed again, glancing at Bucky’s emotionless face.

“It’s a long story. You must know that I haven’t always been like this,” he continued, gesturing at his muscled body. “I was small, sickly and picked up fights with boys larger than me. That’s how we actually met. He ‘rescued’ me, when a few boys were roughing me up.

“This jerk…” Once again, he glanced fondly at Bucky. ”...became my only friend and I his. We were inseparable. But then, World War II came and he was drafted. I tried to join, too, but no one wanted to have me. Well, I couldn’t blame them. I had a list of health issues a mile long. I would have probably died during Basic Training.”

“What did you do then? How did you become this?” Wanda gestured at his current state of being.

“I met a doctor, who was working on a secret government project, whose goal was to create a super soldier. He gave me a chance and I was chosen for it.”

“You became a lab experiment? Really? Still no sense of self-preservation.” Sharon snorted.

“So, apparently you became a super soldier. How did you two end up here and what’s got that to do with the murderous version of Bucky?” Wanda demanded to know.

“Patience. Right after the transformation, the doctor was killed and I was sent to keep the soldiers entertained and to sell war bonds. That’s how I learned that Bucky’s division had been kidnapped after a battle by Hydra, a splinter group of a Nazi Occult Society - the Thule Society. So naturally, I did the only thing I could. I stormed the compound on my own and freed all the prisoners, including Bucky.”

Wanda and Sharon looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“No sense of self-preservation,” Sharon muttered, shaking her head.

“You’re telling me,” Sam snorted.

“Sam…” Steve hissed, blushing furiously.

Sam narrowed his eyes on him.

“What? You know as well as I do that she’s right,” he retorted.

Wanda decided to interrupt. The clock was ticking. “Sorry to interrupt, Steve, but would you please come to point? We haven’t that much time left.” 

Steve nodded. “Sorry. Of course, you’re right.”

So, Steve continued his tale. Told them everything about…

...how he as Captain America and his unsegregated unit, the Howling Commandos, fought against HYDRA, Bucky always at his side, until that fateful day, where he fell from the speeding train in the Swiss Alps....

...how the last battle against Hydra and his ruthless leader ended up with him crashing a plane, equipped with experimental nuclear bombs intended for Old America’s East Coast, into the Arctic Sea…

...how he ended up for one hundred years frozen there, before SASA under the command of one Peggy Carter dug him up in 2045…

...how he ended up working up for her…

...how in 2055, SHIELD’s newly appointed director Phil Coulson stumbled over an old HYDRA base, containing an old cryo chamber with one person in it - the feared assassin, the Winter Soldier. He was also known as James Buchanan Barnes, equipped with a metal arm and a critical case of brainwashing, torture and memory loss according to the massive amount of paper files, which contained every single gory detail of shaping a missing soldier into a weapon (Steve had cried for days, when he had found out, what they had done to his Bucky)…

...how it took almost five years to get rid of Bucky’s programming and it was only  possible because of Princess Shuri’s genius…

...how it took another two years to get fit for working on a spaceship (it turned out that Bucky was a natural when it came to machinery and technology), which they did after the Battle of Hawaii, where Sam joined them not only at work…

Wanda and Sharon listened with great interest. They had heard through Sharon’s aunt of Captain America and his stories, but thought of it only as old wives tales, even though they were part of the history books now. And now it seemed that Steve was really the original Captain and not just a namesake. And Bucky had been a brainwashed soldier, who was just as old as Steve.

It explained a little bit, what Wanda had seen inside Bucky’s mind. Another side of him, a dangerous side...Only that it still didn’t explain, how he ended up here in this catatonic state.

Surprisingly, Steve had one.

“Sam told me about his theory. If this ship wants to get rid of us, showing us our greatest fears...Bucky’s greatest fear is that his Winter Soldier side is going to show up one day and get us all -  his friends, his family, his lovers - killed. He told me that he’d rather get rid of his own existence than let this happen.

What if the Core showed him something that was so real that his mind just shut down to prevent this from happening?” he speculated.

Sharon scratched her chin. “You mean he put himself into this coma, because he thought he was that Winter Soldier again, but didn’t want to hurt you or us?” she mused.

Steve nodded. “But it’s just a theory.”

“I’m not a psychologist, but it sounds...plausible,” Sharon replied. “But I’d suggest that we keep this to ourselves, until we have further proof. No need to upset Fury or the others.”

Everyone nodded, as Fury’s voice crackled though the comms.  _ “Wilson, Rogers, I need you here on the bridge ASAP,” _ he barked.

Steve and Sam stretched their cramped bodies, before they got up. Steve pressed a loving kiss on Bucky’s cold, sweaty forehead, just like Sam did after.

“Watch him for us?” Steve asked.

“Of course. Now go.” Wanda shooed them away, getting up to return to her workstation.

Both men threw a last longing glance at their motionless partner before they headed back to the bridge to see what the hell Fury wanted now.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

It turned out that Fury wanted Sam to take over the repairs from Natasha and Clint so that the two pilots could rest for a little. While Sam already changed into his EVA suit, Fury gave Tony and Steve instructions to look for the cause of the false bioscan readings.

At the airlock, a red light was flashing brightly. On the control, “Locked” was flashing and through the small window, Sam could see the outer door opening. Nat and Clint entered the chamber in their black-red and purple EVA suits. Clint closed the door behind her, before the distinctive hiss of the atmosphere being pressurized could be heard.

Sam, getting ready to go outside, waited, until the inner airlock door opened and the two of them entered, taking off their helmets.   
  
“You’ve been out there a long time. Trying to break my record?” he sassed.

Clint rolled his eyes. “Believe me, I'd rather spend the next twelve hours outside than another five minutes in this can. This ship is bad. It watches you.”   
  
“What the...? Have you been smoking again?” Sam asked.

Natasha shook her red curls, gazing fondly at her best friend. “Ignore him. His caffeine levels are a little bit low,” she replied. “How’s James?”

Sam’s shoulders slumped down. “Nothing new. Sometimes I think he’s just going to break out into laughter and shout out loud ‘April Fools!’”

Natasha’s gaze softened. “I’m sure everything’s going to be alright.” She patted him reassuringly on the shoulder.

Sam sighed again.

“From your lips to God's ears,” he muttered, putting on his own helmet before he stepped into the airlock chamber.   
  
  


On the bridge, Steve sat at his station, programming the sensors anew. Now and then,  he glanced over to see what Tony was doing. The engineer was sitting at what would have been Bucky’s computer terminal, his face rapt as he looked at the data flashing by. His lips moved though, the man obviously muttering to himself. 

This was a man who seemed to be in love with someone or something. Steve saw it every day on Sam’s and Bucky’s faces.   
  
“So Mr. Stark, I think you're in love,” Steve stated.

Tony jerked out of his train of thoughts, looking as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep.   
  
“Hmmm. Yeahhh, Pepper used to tell me I loved the  _ Event Horizon _ more than I loved her. I told her that wasn't true. I mean, I just knew the  _ Event Horizon _ better, that's all.   
  
“Pepper is your wife?” Steve asked. He hadn’t known that Stark was married.   
  
“Yes.” was Tony’s monosyllabic answer.   
  
“Isn’t it hard, being so far away from her?””   
  
“Yes. I miss her every day, since she died one year now,” Tony whispered, his face taking on that faraway look he got everytime he thought about her.

Steve’s gaze fell in sympathy. He knew what it was like to lose someone close. “I'm sorry.”   
  
Tony kept his attention focused on the screen. “These things happen,” he muttered, before he scrunched up his eyebrows in confusion. “Wait a minute, that's not right…”   
  
His fingers flew across the keyboard, his eyes double-checking and triple-checking the data on his screen.   
  
Fury, who had just come back in, leaned over Tony’s shoulder.   


“You got something for me, Mr. Stark?” he asked.   
  
Tony pointed at the screen. “The date.”   


“What about it?”   
  
“The  _ Event Horizon's _ computer thinks it's 2060.”

“ It's 2067…” Fury drawled.   
  
“Exactly. The ship's internal clock is off by seven years.”   
  
“Maybe a power interruption crashed the system…” Steve suggested. 

Tony shook his head.

“No, there's no evidence of a surge or spike of any kind. It's as if time just... stopped for seven years.”   
  
“Any explanation?” Fury demanded to know.   
  
“It's possible that intense gravitational fields affect the passage of time… Black holes only make sense on paper, because it's all math, you see. But as to what really happened…” Tony shook his head. “Personally, I think the  _ Event Horizon _ has passed beyond our plane of reality, and like Lazarus, returned from the dead.”

Steve and Fury didn’t say anything. It all sounded like Stark knew exactly what was going on, but just didn’t want to tell them the truth. Before they could ask further, the crackle of the intercom interrupted them, Wanda’s frantic voice calling them.

“Guys? I found the final log entry.”

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	12. Raw Nerves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find the final entry log and watch it...

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Everyone, except for Sam, had gathered around Wanda’s temporary workplace to look at the jumpy, obviously handheld camera image of the found footage.

_ The Gravity Couch Bay.  _

_ Two men wearing black and dark green overalls, obviously belonging to the crew, are doing last minute checks on the electronic modules. Unlike this version of the Event Horizon, there’s no sign of debris or frozen blood. The ship seems well-lit and very clean. _

_ “We have finally reached Neptune and thereby a safe distance. We are currently preparing to engage the Arc Reactor gravity drive and open the gateway…” an off-voice announced happily. _

“Who’s the speaker?” Fury asked.

Wanda glanced at the file information. “File was created by the mission commander…” she read out loud.

“Alexander Pierce...” Tony added quietly. He remembered him from the time, while the Event Horizon was built. A Captain of the former United States Air Force and one of the old relics of the Inhuman Civil War - one that had been for the registration of Inhumans.

Even after all those years, Tony was filled with irritation, how he had managed to get the commandership for his baby girl. Guy must have had connections up to the highest political circles.

Fury glanced at him with a frown, but then turned his attention back to the video.

_ The camera image moves further into the Second Containment. A lone engineer is at the control for the Core, running the final checkups for the test drive. When he notices Pierce being there, he blushes, turning to the camera, and gives him a self-conscious  ‘thumbs-up’. _

_ “So, it seems we’re really ready for this. When you get this message, God willing, we will have reached the solar system of Proxima Centauri and its terrestrial planet Proxima Centauri b…” Pierce’s voice trails off. _

“Do you know what I’m wondering about? If they ever made it there…” Fury mused.

The others agreed silently. They had thought the same.

_ The camera is moving through the endless main corridor, the foredecks and then onto the bridge. In the small adjoined meeting room, five men and a woman are sitting around the conference table joking and laughing, all of them wearing the same overalls as the rest of the crew. _

_ The camera image stops moving. Pierce is loudly clearing his throat. _

_ “I just want to say how proud I am of  my crew. I'd like to name my station heads…” the he moves the camera to each mentioned crew member. “...Brock Rumlow, Jack Rollins, Helmut Zemo, Vasily Karpov, Georges Batroc and Dottie Underwood. _

_ Also, lots of kudos to Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and all the other scientists who made all of this possible.”  _

_ “Oh my god, that sounds like your Academy Awards winning speech,” Rumlow snickers. Rollins smacks the back of his head. Brock huffs, but shuts up. _

_ A face of an older man appears. He is about sixty years old and has a handsome face for his age. His blond hair is tinged with grey streaks, giving him the appearance of a wise man. _

_ “Well thank you, Brock, for this completely uncalled for comment. Although it’s not the Academy Awards...I had a speech prepared and I wrote it down but I...Well, I can't find it. So, off to your stations. We got a trip to make.” _

_ The crew gets up and go to their respective stations, while Pierce takes place in his Captain’s Chair, his face flushed with excitement. _

_ “Everyone ready?” _

_ Collective nodding. _

_ “Then let’s go. Or as the old romans would say: Ave, atque, vale. Hail and farewell.” _

_ A burst of static…. _

_....the camera image shaking hardly... _

_......followed by an inhuman howl of feedback. It sounds like a pack of screaming hyaenas, almost alive. Through the swirl of static, there’s only the suggestion of movement. _

Fury leaned forwards and froze the timeframe. Everyone was shocked by the last part of the video. What the hell had happened?

On the screen, the frozen image was obscured by static, definitely blurred beyond recognition.

Fury turned towards Tony. “What the hell was that, Stark? Would you maybe care to explain?” 

Tony stared at the unrecognisable depiction. “I don’t really know,” he whispered.

Fury let out a frustrated sigh. Really...Was it too much asked for to get some answers from the one person who developed this shit here?

“I could run the image through a series of filters, try to clean it up,” Wanda suggested, sensing everyone’s growing frustration with the whole situation.

The Captain nodded. “Do it…” 

His voice trailed off, as the lights suddenly started to flicker. Frowning, everyone gathered was looking around.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Wanda asked, her eyes widening. Sharon, who had been standing on her left side the whole time, squeezed her shoulder in a gesture of silent comfort.

“Maybe just a power drain…” Sharon argued.

Fury glared at his doctor.

“Just a power drain? Just a power drain? We have barely enough power for life support as it is. If we can't stop the drain, we're not gonna make it.”

Tony suddenly inhaled sharply. There could be only one reason for such a happening.

“The Core…” he whispered, before he jumped like a scalded cat and headed for the door.

“Mr. Stark!” Fury bellowed after him.

But Tony had already vanished through the door. Fury groaned. “The rest of you stays here. I don't want anyone else going near that thing,” he ordered before stalking after the Engineer.

“As if we ever would go near that thing voluntarily,” Clint muttered in the silence of the room.

A statement everyone could only agree to wholeheartedly.

“I still don’t trust Stark. He’s keeping something from us.” Natasha said, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“But you’ve done the same, Nat. With you having been a spy and so on,” Steve said from his place next to Bucky.

Natasha huffed and mock-glared at the blond. 

“That may be right,  _ Steven _ . But at least my secrets don’t get us trapped in an oversized space version of the  _ Mary Celeste _ billions of kilometers away from civilisation,” she pointed out.

“She's right, you know.” Clint shrugged his shoulders, ending the discussion for now.

  
Tony had made it to the Engineering unit and through the First Containment in record time. He stood in front of the big vault door, still sealed, his heart racing with excitement. Finally some time alone with his baby and without all those people around. 

Taking a deep breath, he touched the panel next to the vault entrance. The Second Containment Seal opened. Tony was about to enter, when he heard heavy footsteps behind him. Groaning to himself, he had barely time to turn around before Fury arrived behind him and stopped him from entering. He was holding a Geiger counter in his right hand, checking it constantly. It was silent. Only then did they entered the Core Room together.   
  
“No radiation. So, any clues what's causing the drain?” Fury asked the other man.   
  
Tony crossed over to a second, much smaller console, looked at the data. His brown eyes darted over the information,  and he frowned when he didn’t find anything.   
  
“All the magnetic fields are holding. Maybe it’s a short in the fail-safe circuit. I'll have to check it out manually.” His hands drummed impatiently on each side of the screen. Something was off. Even with his powers, the ship had somehow refused him access to the whole system.

Tony pushed himself off the console and walked over to the right of the tiled wall, Fury following him on his heels.

He assisted Tony in removing bolts from a hidden access panel in the wall. The panel fell away, revealing a cramped duct leading deep into the ship's circuitry.   
  
Tony took a deep breath, before he climbed down into the duct. Fury handed him a flashlight and a toolkit.   
  
“We need to get the power back. Else our air's gonna go bad,” he reminded the engineer.   
  
Tony nodded. “Keep checking the Core for radiation. Or Carbon dioxide may be the least of our worries,” he instructed, before he began to crawl into the depths of the ship. His breath breath echoed weirdly in the cramped shaft, as he counted off circuit panels as he went: ”E-three... E-five... E-seven...Come on...ah, here are you are…"

Outside the duct,  Fury slogged through the coolant to the Core, trying not to grimace at the sight and texture of the slimy liquid. He stared at the eerie sphere, wanting to see if what Wilson had mentioned was true. But it remained metallic, mundane.   
  
He pulled out his Geiger counter once again and crossed to the reactor shell, examining  a gleaming weld there. The device clicked slowly - no leak.   
  
  


Steve had returned to the Bridge with Natasha in tow, while Clint had vanished into a quiet corner to get some well-deserved sleep. There was no need for them all to stay in Medical and wait for the inevitable to come. Not when they could do something productive that would get them out of this place earlier. However, just when they entered the empty bridge again, a yellow light on the engineering board started flashing.

Steve's eyes widened. He knew the section from the one time, where he had to fill in for Buck after the last massive panic attack. The engineering sections flashed yellow...and green...   


“Steve…your station...” Natasha’s voice took on an alarmed undertone, as she poked his biceps to turn his attention to the other station, which was flashing dangerously red. Steve frowned and rushed over, slightly bending over the display. His eyes widened, when he realized what was happening.

“What the hell…” escaped his lips, as he realized that the bioscan was about to go wild.   
  
He pressed the button for the ship’s intercom.   


“Sir, the bioscan just went off the scale…”

 

In Medical, Wanda was rummaging through more hours of video footage, when a sharp inhale from behind alerted her.

On his makeshift bed,  Bucky was shaking and convulsing in what seemed like an epileptic fit. 

“Sharon!” she shouted and rushed over to him. Sharon appeared in the doorway, also rushing to Bucky, when she saw what was happening. Both women tried to hold him down without trying to hurt him. But it wasn’t easy, since Bucky still was much stronger than the both of them together.   
  
“Bucky! Can you hear me? Bucky!” Wanda cried.   
  
Bucky’s didn’t come to. His eyes remained unfocused, unseeing as he tried to speak.   
  
Sharon leaned in closer, trying to hear what he was saying...   
  
Bucky arched on the bed in visible agony and his words came out in a strangled, tortured voice:   
  
“ **_The dark is coming_ ** …” before he went limp again.

Wanda and Sharon looked at each other in confusion. The dark? What the hell was that supposed to mean?   


Tony stopped before module E-12. His ears picked up a faint hissing and popping. Probably some damaged chips.   
  
“There you are. Got ya.”    
  
Using a screwdriver to open up the module, he revealed a series of circuit boards behind it. One of them sparked, putting on an impressive light show. Tony plucked the damaged chips out and started running a bypass.   
  
Suddenly, his flashlight flickered. He banged it against the duct wall, trying to get to work again. It had the opposite effect. It grew dimmer. Dimmer. Went out. Tony groaned and all but banged his head against the wall. How was he supposed to work without a proper source of light?   
  
“Um. Captain Fury? I, uh, I seem to have a problem with my light.”

_ The silent hiss of a matchstick being ignited in the dark... _   
  
To his surprise, Fury didn’t answer.

“Captain Fury?” Tony repeated in a more beated, hushed tone.   
  
_ Another hiss, then a woman's voice like a distant echo: _   
  
“Tony.”   
  
Tony startled at the sound. He recognized the voice. But it was impossible. She couldn’t be here.   
  
She spoke again, no longer far away, but a close whisper in his ear:   
  
“Tony. Help me. I'm so hot.”   
  
Tony’s breath hitched, his eyes wide open in hope and fear.   
  
  
It was dark in the Core room. Even the emergency lights had gone out. Total darkness. Fury was pissed. What did Stark take so long?   
  
“We just lost all power in here!” he shouted into the com, frowning, when he didn’t get an answer. “Mr. Stark...?   
  
His voice trailed off as he looked towards the Core, a red glow reflecting across his eyes. He stumbled a few steps away from the reactor. This was impossible. It couldn’t be. And yet...Here he was, staring...   
  
...at the burning man from Medical, emerging from the small lake of coolant around the Core like a vengeful phoenix. The deep roar of its conflagration filled the containment room, as the apparition came to a halt on solid metal ground.

It slowly turned towards him and raises its arm and pointed at Fury in accusation.   
  
“Don't leave me…” It hissed angrily at him.   
  
Fury could only stare as the burning man turned and vanished into a bulkhead, leaving the wall blackened and burned with his passing.   
  


Inside the duct, there was still total darkness. Tony’s breath echoed in the cramped metal space. This was Afghanistan all over again. The dark cave. The same stifling air. Only this time it was worse. This time, he had managed to get himself into this situation. And there was no way that Pepper was here. She was gone. She and their unborn child. Wasn’t she?

Right now, there was this tiny spark of hope inside his gut. Hope that he just had imagined the last few months and were together with her on the Stark Space Station.   
  
“Pep...? Is that really you?” he whispered. 

No answer.   
  
Tony banged his flashlight. Again. Again…He needed light…He needed to see her.   
  
“Help me. I'm so hot,” Pepper’s ethereal voice whispered back   
  
The flashlight flickered...   
  
Pepper’s pale face, her right burnt side, was only centimeters away from Tony's, staring at him, burning another hole into his soul.   
  
“So hot,” she breathed.   
  
His flashlight flickered again, snapped on...   
  
She was gone. 

Tony let his head fall to the floor of the deck with a loud thud, breathing in ragged sobs.

His Pepper was gone again.

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	13. Antibodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony acts strange. But he isn't the only one...

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“It was Phil Coulson,” Fury said, looking seriously at his crew.

After the incident in the Core Room, Fury had called in another meeting, telling the others, what he had seen there. But this time it was on the bridge, so that he could keep an eye on Sam, who was still on his own outside. Now he was impatiently waiting for their reaction.

“You sure? Coulson is dead. Died on the  _ Triskelion _ .” Natasha frowned. 

“Probably a carbon dioxide poisoning induced hallucination, combined with impaired judgement…” Sharon mused, completely missing the way Wanda was staring at the floor during Fury’s recount.

“Goddammit, Sharon, it was not a hallucination!” he exploded. ”I saw a man on fire with his voice. And then he disappeared. I could practically feel the heat coming from him on my face.”

“Maybe it was one of the original crew.” Natasha suggested.

“And who? No, it must have been Phil.” Fury insisted. He turned to Tony, who was once again staring blankly at one of the blood-adorned walls. “Mr. Stark, you were right there, too. You must have heard something, seen something...Don’t you?”

Tony jerked out of his train of thoughts, all of them involving Pepper, and shook his head.

“No, I saw nothing,” he said, although he knew better.

“But I did.” Wanda suddenly piped up.

All eyes turned on her, making her really uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“When?” Sharon wanted to know, surprised and a little disappointed that Wanda didn’t confide in her as she always did.

The Med Tech rubbed her arms in an unconscious gesture. “Over an hour ago. In Medical. I saw Pietro for the second time. My brother...He was lying on that examination table. Nude. But his whole body was moving and his legs were...” she whispered.

“What do you mean by ‘the second time?’” Fury asked her.

“The first time was on the bridge, shortly before the first gravitational wave. One minute, there had been only the frozen corpse. In the next, I see a frozen version of Pietro in front of me.”

“Isn't it possible that you were maybe traumatized by finding the body on the bridge?” Tony sneered unconsciously.

Wanda clenched her fist at the comment, brown eyes flashing red with anger.

“Traumatized? I’ll give you traumatized. It’s your fault, after all, that my brother is quadraplegic. It’s your fault because it was shrapnel from a Stark Industries weapon that hit my brother while we were still in our mother’s womb and severed his spinal cord so that he’s completely paralyzed now! Besides, I’ve seen bodies before! And this was different!” she screamed at him.

Tony stared wordlessly at her as she breathed heavily. Well, at least he now knew why the woman held such a grudge against him. Damn Howard and his weapons.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Wanda huffed and turned away from him, accepting Sharon’s comforting hug after her sudden outburst.

“Wanda is right. It’s like something reaching into your mind. Seeing your thoughts and making them real. Barton, Romanoff, did you experience anything unusual?”

Nat and Clint, who were leaning against the doorway, shook their heads.   
  
”I didn't see anything and I don't have to see anything. Really, this ship is fucked,” Clint retorted.   


“Well, thank you for that scientific analysis, Mister Barton,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes.   


Clint turned red. He pushed himself off the doorframe, preparing to stalk over to the engineer who got them all into his mess.

“Hey! You don't need to be a scientist to figure it out!” he exploded.   
  
“Barton,” Fury warned.   
  
Tony's face had gone blank, as he waited for the Co-Pilot to continue.   
  
“No, skipper...that guy breaks all the laws of physics, but doesn’t think there won't be a price? He already killed the first crew!” Clint snapped back.   
  
“That's enough, Barton!” Fury growled back.   
  
Natasha, who had just resigned herself to her fate and followed Clint to keep him from doing something stupid (which he was doing now), laid one hand on Clint's shoulder to calm him.   
  
Clint, though, reacted completely different. He turned on Natasha, shoving her back towards the door. However, Natasha, used to Clint’s outbursts by now, used his momentum to spin the pilot into a chokehold.

“I think that’s enough, Clint.”   
  
Clint froze, his face slowly turning purple under the pressure of Natasha’s arms. 

“Can I let you go without having to hurt you?” Natasha asked.

Clint nodded slowly. Natasha sighed again, before she released him. Clint rubbed his aching neck.   


“That was mean, Nat,” he grumbled.   
  
“Probably the carbon dioxide,” Tony said wryly.   
  
Clint exploded anew and went for Tony, while Natasha made a frustrated sound behind him.   
  
“I know you’re fucking lying. You know something!” he shouted. Before he could get to Tony, Natasha headed him off and grabbed him by the ear.

“That's enough for one day, Barton!” Fury barked. “I need you back on the  _ Singularity _ . I need you calm, I need you using your head and not your emotions. You make a mistake out there and none of us are getting home. Do you you understand?”

Clint took a deep breath.  “Skipper,” he answered through gritted teeth.   
  
“You two. Get outside and go back to work. I'll join you shortly,” Fury ordered.   
  
Natasha and Clint nodded, before the redhead gently steered her sandy-haired companion outside. Fury turned back to the others, glaring at them.   
  
“We're a long way from home and we're in a bad place. Let's not make it worse. So if anyone has any constructive suggestions, now is the time for them.”   
  
Tony glanced at the engineering control station.

“I think I can stabilize the fields around the singularity. That should prevent another power drain,” he muttered.

“Do it,” Fury growled.   
  
“To conserve our oxygen, we should severely restrict our activity. Anyone who can, should get some sleep.” Sharon suggested, not without shooting a meaningful glance at her Captain.

Fury rolled his eye.   
  
“Really, I don't need sleep, Sharon. I need fucking answers,” he countered, before he exited in an overly dramatic fashion, Steve hot on his heels.

“I think he needs more than  that,” Sharon mused.

Wanda nodded in agreement.

  
Fury stalked down that endless corridor, fully aware that his second was following him. He probably wanted to talk some sense into him. But to be honest, Fury was so done with Stark and his little games. He had better things to do than letting himself be toyed with. Stark had been there and he must have seen something. So why deny everything?

“Sir…” Steve’s deep voice interrupted his train of thoughts.

“What is it, Rogers?” Fury stressed out, not even slowing down a bit.   
  
“I finished the bioscan run with the DNA/RNA filter. The results were bio-readings of indeterminate origin…”   
  
"...‘bio-readings of indeterminate origin.’ You know this can mean nothing and everything. Don't you have anything useful to tell me?”

Steve was silent for a moment, considering his options. “Well, we've got a theory,” he finally said.   
  
That got Fury to stop at least. “First, who is ‘we’? Second, go ahead,” he said, sounding mildly interested.   
  
“Wanda and Sam have spoken about what she had seen in Buck’s mind. I only assumed it to be a mere theory. But it was only when I saw the results of the bioscan that I connected the dots.

“Right before you saw… what you saw, there was a another surge in the bio-readings. We picked up a similar readings right before the  _ Singularity  _ was damaged. What if there were really a connection between the two? The gravity waves, the hallucination  - all part of an defensive reaction, like an immune system…” Steve explained.   
  
Fury stared at him before he started walking again. “I don't need to hear this nonsense.”    
  
Steve rushed to follow him. They both reached the Airlock Bay and entered it.   
  
“I know it sounds crazy, but that’s what Wanda and Sam are saying. They are getting all these crazy vibes from the ship,” he pleaded with his Captain.

Fury stopped again. “So you and the others? Are you really insinuating that this ship is alive?” he snapped.   
  
“I didn't say that. I said the bio-readings correspond to what happened to you. Like the ship is reacting to us…”   


Fury sighed in frustration. He really had no time for that. “Rogers, we're hanging on by our fingernails and you're giving me bullshit stories…”   
  
Steve grabbed him hardly by the arm, his face taking on his serious “Captain America” expression for the first time in decades.   
  
“That's not bullshit. It's the only conclusion the data and Wanda’s and Sam’s instinct supports....”

Fury stared at his second. “Rogers, do you know how crazy that sounds? It's impossible.”   


“I know that. But I trust their instincts. Don’t you?”   
  
Silence. Only then, Fury allowed himself to relax a little bit.   
  
“I do. But if you knew it was impossible, then why'd you waste my time?”   
  
“I thought you wanted an answer. And that's the only one we currently have.”   
  
Fury pulled an EVA suit from the wall and started putting it on. “What I want is to survive the next ten hours, then hop onto the  _ Singularity  _ and fly home.”   
  
Steve checks his watch. “Nine hours and twenty-two minutes...without being nitpicky.”   
  
Fury rolled his eye.

“I'm going outside to work on the  _ Singularity. _ And Rogers...keep that under wraps, what you just told me. We've got enough to worry about.”

Steve nodded and stepped back, watching as Fury locked his helmet into place and went into the chamber between the inner and the outer airlock. He waited until Fury had left the ship before he returned to the bridge.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Things had died down a bit on the Event Horizon. While Steve and Tony managed the bridge, Wanda and Sharon had returned to Medical. Sharon continued to collect blood samples from all over the ship. Wanda...Wanda had fallen asleep in her chair. Her outburst towards Stark had drained her emotionally and within minutes after sitting down at her station, her eyes had dropped shut.   
  
So she almost missed the distant pounding on the threshold of hearing. Not a heartbeat. Definitely not. It was the distinctively sound of metal on metal. As if something was trying to get out - or get in.   
  
Wanda woke up with a start. Still a bit disorientated, she looked around, a bit angry with herself that she had fallen asleep on duty. 

“Bucky…?” she whispered.   
  
She turned around. Bucky was lying on the floor in a heap, completely covered by his sheet. That must have been the pounding sound, which had woken her. She crossed to him. Pulled back the sheet...   
  
...only to reveal several empty nitrogen tanks. Wanda frowned. Where was Bucky? He surely couldn’t have gone somewhere. He had been in a catatonic state, after all.   
  
“Bucky!” she shouted frantically, wildly looking around the lab. But her brother-if-not-by-blood was nowhere to be seen.   
  
Suddenly, her eyes widened, as...   
  
...the IV bottles in front of her filled up with blood. Blood filled up the X-ray light boxes. Blood surged up from gutters in the floor. Blood was everywhere...   
  
And the pounding grew louder… louder… It was almost here in Medical...   
  
That was all what it took to break the spell.

Wanda ran.

She ran away from Medical.

Sprinted along the main corridor.   
  
The pounding boomed after her, hot on her heels...   
  
Wanda darted into the Bridge’s Antechamber, slamming the pressure door shut behind her, cutting off the sound for now.    
  
Breathing heavily, she turned. Stark, Sharon and Steve looked up from their work, staring aghast at her.   
  
“Is everything alright?” Sharon asked, worried about her partners stormy entrance.   
  
Wanda frowned in confusion, looking over at them. “You didn't hear it? You must have heard it!” she hissed.

Sharon and Steve exchanged concerned glances, before they turned to Wanda in concern, who was pale and shaking like a leaf.   
  
“Heard what?” Steve asked.   
  
Wanda stared at him, before she started to laugh out loud - partly hysteric, part relieved.   
  
“Oh… nothing…” she all but sobbed.   
  
Sharon walked over to her, concerned about the smaller woman’s state of mind.   
  
“Come on, you need to sit down,” she said gently, already reaching out to guide her to one of the empty chairs.   
  
Just as she was about to touch her...   
  
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. 

The pounding came from The door itself, putting everyone on alert.   
  
Wanda screamed. Sharon clutched her close to her, while backing away from the door.   
  
The pounding grew louder.  _ Louder _ . The door vibrated so strong with each blow that Sharon had to put her hands over Wanda’s ears. The brunette woman screamed at the door.   
  
“Stop it! Stop it!” she yelled, pressing her body closer to Sharon’s.   
  
But the pounding intensified, the door’s metal structure groaning under the incredible force.   
  
“What is that?” Sharon shouted to be heard above the noise.   
  
Tony, who had stared with wide eyes at the intruding noise, slowly got and walked trance-like forwards to the door.   
  
“What the hell are you doing?” Steve shouted after him.   
  
“It wants me. I have to go,” the Engineer whispered, stretching out his hand for the door.

“No!” Steve shouted again. He jumped off his seat and jogged after Tony, grabbing him by the wrist. Tony tried to shake him off, but Steve trapped his arm in a wrist-lock. Tony turned on the blond commander, his face furious...   
  
...and just as quick as it had begun, the pounding stopped. The both of them remained frozen for a moment, both afraid to breathe.   
  
Tony shook his head. Coming out of the trance, he blinked in confusion at Steve.   
  
“In our current environment, Mr. Stark, self-control is an asset,” Rogers told him.

Tony blinked again. “Okay. I understand. I'm alright. Please, you can let me go.”

But Steve made no move to let the Engineer go.   
  
In the distance, the pounding began again. But this time, it was moving away from  them.   
  
The sudden beeping of the ship systems station finally broke the tension and Steve let go of Tony. A warning light flashed on the console.   
  
“What is it?” Steve asked.   
  
Tony stepped forwards and looked at the station’s screen. 

“The forward airlock.”   
  
“Fury, Sam, Nat, Clint, any of you in the airlock?” Steve radioed.   
  
“ _ That's a negative, Rogers _ .  _ We’re still enjoying the beautiful sight out here. _ ” Fury’s sarcastic reply came straight back.

Steve frowned. “But who’s then in there?” he wondered.

A tiny gasp from Wanda’s side caught his attention and he looked at her. She looked afraid, her fragile hand covering her mouth.   


“Bucky.” she whispered in utter horror.

An ice cold shiver ran down Steve’s spine and he blanched. What the hell was going on?

“What do you mean?” he asked her, although he dreaded the answer.

Wanda began to sob. “Bucky. When I woke up in Medical… He was gone.”

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	14. Breathless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky wakes up and finds himself in a seemingly hopeless situation...

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

While Wanda slept at her station, Bucky was still lying on the makeshift bed, staring motionlessly at the ceiling. Physically, he seemed alright, but his mind was caught elsewhere.

_ In the whole factory lingered the constant nauseous mixture of gunpowder, an everlasting cold, sweat, and the copper smell of blood. Kreischberg was one of HYDRA’s many weapons factories, and it mostly operated on hard labor done by the numerous prisoners of war taken by the Nazi splinter group. _

_ He had no idea how long he had been here in these dark walls. Could have been for days, could have been for weeks, could have been for months. The only thing he know right now was that he was strapped to an examination table, staring at the dirty ceiling.  _

_ Now and then, a little weasel-faced man would pop by, looking at him, injecting him with something so awful that it seemed to burn his inside. The flaming heat crawled through every fiber of his being….No matter how long he waited for his saving grace, death seemed to avoid him for good. _

_ He was dozing off again from the last injection the bespectacled weasel had given him, when a faraway explosion had him on alert. The explosions continued, as all of a sudden two men burst into the room and started to free him. His eyes were swollen, impairing his vision enough that he couldn’t quite recognize them. But hey, if they were here to free him, who was he to complain? _

Suddenly, Bucky blinked. It was just a small movement, but for him, it was a huge physical effort. He blinked again. Although his mind still wasn’t his own, his body knew everything that he had to do.

Get out of here.

_ After cutting the last of his restrains and helping him off the table, each man grabbed one of Bucky’s arms, leading him outside into the dark corridor, where many more people were waiting for them - men and women alike (That made him wonder. Since when did women work at a factory for prisoners of war?) _

His upper body suddenly sat upright and his bare feet were swinging to the side so that they were dangling from the bed. He sat there for a moment, before he hopped soundlessly onto the metal floor, his makeshift sheet sliding down. His head turned and he looked blankly at Wanda as she dozed.

Only then, he slowly walked out of Medical, his bare feet barely audible on the old floor, and into the main corridor.

His destination: the forward airlock.

_ The men introduced themselves as Alexander Pierce and Brock Rumlow and they were here to lead him back home. Strangely enough, they already knew his name. Then they introduced him to the rest of the people. Most of the names were strange, foreign and definitively not what he had expected in this war. _

_ The whole group was leading him through the surprisingly silent corridors, chattering about trivial things like going home, reunion with the family. Bucky could only agree with that. He missed his sister and his parents dearly, but he missed his little punk the most. He just hoped that Stevie hadn’t messed up things at home too much. The little trouble maker was a magnet for picking up fights in Brooklyn’s side alleys and he wasn’t here to protect him from them. _

_ Stevie… _

_ Sammy…(Who the hell was Sam? Wait, wasn’t that one of his partners?) _

_ The group finally stopped in front of a heavy metal door with only a small window at eye level. On the right side was a small rectangular plate with a white, smaller  plate embedded in the upper half. Pierce told him to touch it with his fingers, since it was the only way to open the door leading to their freedom. He wondered about the strange request, but who was he to disobey the order of a superior officer? _

_ His hand reached out and touched the plate. To his surprise, it glowed green, before the door opened with a hiss. They entered the small middle room, Pierce urging them to hurry up, since they could hear excited voices in the distance, guessing it to be the enemy. He wasn’t sure if the whole group would fit in there. But somehow, they did. _

Bucky had reached the airlock and pressed the touch panel, although hesitantly. In the distance, he could hear frantic voices calling his name, but dismissed it as as a figment of his addled imagination.

Stepping in, he could hear the voices coming closer. But before they could reach him, the door closed behind his back.

_ Just as they had closed the door, faces appeared on the other side, strangely enough looking worried. Hollow beats sounded through the small room, as the owners of said faces pounded strong fists against the steel door.  _

_ He was confused. One of them looked like an older, bigger version of his little spitfire. But that was impossible. Stevie couldn’t be here. Steve was safe in Brooklyn. Safe from this war. So he talked to them. Told them everything about the darkness. Because it would get them, too. Soon. _

_ Pierce nudged him at the shoulder, motioning at another small rectangle, similar to the other one. When Bucky asked him what it was for, Rumlow told him that would open the door to freedom. But first, they had to get rid of those clothes. All of them had been drenched with a strange liquid on their escape and they didn’t want to risk dying of poison. A strange request, he thought, but on the other side...He really didn’t want to die a slow death. _

_ So he followed the others’ example, ignoring the voices outside until the room was littered with clothing of all kinds. Feeling self-conscious all of a sudden, he waited until everyone was ready.  _

He felt all of a sudden uneasy in his own skin. But since he couldn’t crawl out of it, he did the next best thing.

He got rid of his clothes, before directing his gaze at the second panel right to the outer airlock door.

There was one more thing he had to do.

_ Only then, he pressed a few buttons. Immediately, he felt weightless, as if he was floating through the air. It felt so...free. From outside, the voices calling him, became more frantic. He turned around, looking at the Stevie doppelganger. Oh, how he wished Stevie was here with him. _

_ Suddenly, the light in the chamber flickered. To his utter horror, everything became pitch-black, Pierce, Rumlow and the others disappearing although he still heard their voices. He started breathing heavily. He needed to get out. It was as if the blackness was trying to claw a way back into his soul, making him see clear for the first time in hours. _

Bucky’s eyes widened, when he realized where he was. 

He wasn’t back in Kreischberg

He was in the airlock.

Without his suit.

Which was activated to open in a few moments.

He was going to die.

Suffocate in the ice-cold void between Neptune and the rest of the universe.

And Stevie would have been forced to watching him die like that.

But he didn’t want to die.

“Stevie. Sammy. Help me.” He screamed.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Steve, Wanda and Sharon rushed from the bridge, leaving Tony behind. Wanda led them back into the main corridor, racing towards the Forwards Airlock just in time to see a figure moving towards the airlock.

“Bucky!” three desperate voices shouted, but their engineer didn’t hear them. Either wouldn’t or couldn’t.

They reached the bay just as Bucky stepped into the chamber. He seemed to be in the same state of trance as Tony had been just minutes ago. The door closed behind his back and the three of them could only watch in confusion as he stripped down completely, his overall and everything else now scattered on the floor.

As they raised their fists to beat them against the inner airlock door, screaming Bucky’s name all over again, they were surprised to find it still open. But not for long. Suddenly, Bucky turned round and stared through them with cold, blank eyes. Steve shuddered, because he had seen that look many times before. Before he could get in, Bucky’s metal hand reached out to the airlock control, touching it.   
  
The pressure door shut with a hiss, blocking Bucky from view.

Steve let out an angry, desperate shout, before he touched his earpiece. They needed Fury in here.

Quickly.

 

Outside both ships, Fury, Nat, Clint and Sam were still clinging to the  _ Singularity's _ hull. They had carefully removed an access panel, which had revealed lots of scorched wiring.   
  
Sam sighed. Fucking great. Just what they needed. More work.    


“Guess we'll have to re-route through the port conduit to the Auxiliary power unit,” he suggested.   
  
“What about the accumulator...?” Clint wanted to know.

Sam was about to answer, when Steve’s panic-stricken voice came in over the open comm channel.   
  
“ _ Captain Fury, Sir, come in… we got a situation. _ ” 

 

Fury groaned. Really. Couldn’t he leave the kids alone for one fucking hour without causing trouble?   
  
“Fury here. What's going on in there, Rogers?” he finally answered.   
  
They all could hear Steve taking a long, unsteady breath, before he replied: 

“Buck's in the airlock.”   
  
  
In the  _ Event Horizon’ _ s airlock bay, Steve waited for Fury’s reply, while the others huddled close to the door, watching Bucky’s ever move inside the chamber Argus-eyed. The reply came quickly.   
  
“ _ What _ ?” Fury demanded.   
  
“Bucky. He's awake. He's in the airlock. He's not wearing a suit. Do I have to say more?”    
  
  


Outside, at the  _ Singulary’ _ s hull section, four crew members looked at each other in shock.

“What did he just say?” Sam whispered, almost losing letting go from the hull. Only Nat’s quick reflexes saved him. 

Fury clenched his fists before turning to Sam.

“Wilson, stay here! Don't stop working!” he ordered, although the Rescue Tech would rather go back to help Barnes. But they needed his knowledge right here and right now.    
  
“But Bucky…” Sam protested. He didn’t want to stay here while his partner was in danger.  _ He  _ wanted to go and save him. Not Fury.   
  
“I know you want to go, Wilson. But I need your skills here, where they are needed. You can help him more by finishing these repairs, so that we can get the hell out of here. I'll get him.”

Sam looked Fury in the eye.

“Promise me,” he demanded.

“I promise,” Fury said, giving him a firm nod, before he swung his body around, heading across the umbilicus to the  _ Event Horizon _ . He moved in great leaps, using the magnetic plates in his gloves and boots to keep from drifting off into Neptune's thin atmosphere.   
  
  


In the airlock bay, Steve worked the airlock control panel, alternating between touching the panel over and over again and hammering with his fists against the pressure door. Without success. It stayed closed.   
  
“He must have engaged the override. I can’t open it.” he sighed.   


“Can you shut it down?” Wanda asked, opening the Airlock access panel.   
  
“I'll try. Sharon, you better get your bag of tricks. We’re gonna need it.”   
  
Sharon nodded and ran back to Medical to get her things. Wanda banged on the Airlock door, while Steve took a closer look at the wiring.   


“Bucky! Please open the door! We can talk about it. Just come out.” she shouted.   
  


  
Inside the airlock, Wanda’s muffled was barely audible through the thick door.   


“Open the door!” the brunette woman shouted at him.   
  
Bucky ignored her and turned off the artificial gravity. He began to float gently in the air.   
  
  


Fury moved like a frantic Spider-man across the surface of the  _ Event Horizon _ . “I'm on my way, Rogers. Any change?”   


“ _ You better hurry. He's engaged the override. We can't open the inner door. _ ”   
  
Fury cursed under his breath, moved even faster. Hopefully, he wasn’t too late.   
  
  


Wanda leaned her head against the window, her muffled voice still trying to coax Bucky out.   
  
“The door, Bucky! Please open the door!” she pleaded with him.   
  
Inside the Airlock, Bucky’s gaze was fixed upon the outer airlock door. And beyond it - the infinity of space. He spoke in a flat monotone:   
  
“Stevie, did you hear it?”   
  
  


Steve stopped everything what he was doing, stunned to hear his voice. Getting up, he stood next to Wanda, before answering:   
  
“Yes. Yes, Buck, we heard it. Please come out and we can talk about it.”   
  
“Keep him talking. I’ll try to open the door.” Wanda whispered into Steve’s ear, before she tried her luck with the access panel, although she wasn’t as adept with that kind of technology as the others were.   
  
“Do you know what it was?” Steve asked his wayward best guy.   
  
“It gets inside you. It shows you things… horrible things… things I never want to live through again,” Bucky’s muffled voice told him. “...can't describe it... there are no words… Kreischberg.”

  
  
On the bridge, Tony sat alone, listening to the chatter on the intercom.    
  
“ _ What, Buck. What does it show you? _ ” Steve’s deep voice asked.   
  
“ _ Kreischberg. It won't stop, it goes on and on and on… I can’t go back there. _ ”

A sharp inhale from Steve.   
  
“ _ You don’t have to, Buck. I’ll make sure of it. But what do you mean with it? What won’t stop? _ ”    
  
“ _ The darkness inside me… _ ”

A low moan escaped Tony’s lips and he cradled his head in his hands.   
  
  


Fury raced across the surface of the  _ Event Horizon _ , the only sounds his laboured breathing and Barnes’ tortured voice, patched through on his radio:   
  
“ _...It's inside and it eats and eats until there's nothing left. _ ”   
  
“ _ The dark inside...? I don't understand. If it’s about that part of your past….it wasn’t your fault. _ ”   
  
“ _ The darkness from the Other Place… _ ”   


 

“The other crew, they're there with me. They're waiting for me. They're waiting for you. I won't go back there... I won't…” Bucky whispered, still not looking at Steve.   
  
Outside, Steve pressed his face against the Airlock window, trying to calm him down.   
  
“Buck, look at me,” he begged. “Look at me. Please, open this door.”   
  
Running footsteps announced Sharon’s return, this time with her medkit.   
  
“I don’t think Steve can talk him down. We might need a sedative,” Wanda said from her place at the access panel. Sharon knelt beside her and assisted her in rewiring.   
  
“We need to work fast. If he opens the outer door he'll turn his insides out.”   
  
Both of their hands flew as they rewired the circuits, sweat beads their faces.   
  
“See? Almost got it!” Sharon rejoiced.   
  
  


“Come on, Buck, open this door…” Steve coaxed.   
  
Bucky turned around and looked at him with dead eyes. He reached out to gently touch the glass between them. Steve did the same, their hands still fitting perfectly together besides the barrier.   
  
_ “If you could see the things I've seen, you wouldn't try to stop me. You'd come with me,” _ Bucky breathed.

 

“And I… Sam and I would go with you. But now is not the time. So please just come out, Buck. Do it for me.”

Bucky looked at him...then took a step back. His hand moved to the outer airlock door control. He hesitated for a split second...then floated to the outer airlock door control. Hit it.   
  
“NOOO!” Steve’s muffled scream sounded through the pressure door. He began to bang against the door anew.   
  
A yellow warning light started to flash. A warning klaxon whooped, letting out a deafening noise.   
  
Buck jerked his hands to his ears, closed his eyes...   
  
“Stand by for decompression. Thirty seconds…” A computer voice announced.   
  
Bucky opened his eyes as if waking from a dream...   
  
“Hey, Stevie...what are doing...?” he joked, his face falling as he saw Steve’s horrified face. Only then he realized where he was...and what was about to happen.   
  
“Oh my god OH MY GOD...Stevie. Sammy. Help me!” he screamed.   


 

“Wanda! Sharon! You need open the door!” Steve barked.   


“We can't! The inner door can't open, once the outer door has been triggered. It would decompress the entire ship!” Wanda shouted. Her heart ached for Bucky. No one should have to die like that.   
  
“You gotta open, you gotta stop it, please…” Bucky’s muffled voice begged.   
  
“We have to do something, oh God…” Steve panicked.   
  
“Nick, Bucky just activated the door. It's on a thirty second delay…” Sharon shouted into her com.   
  
  


Outside the ships, Fury moved through the  _ Event Horizon _ superstructure, recklessly leaping from one beam to another, trying to build up speed.   
  
“Patch me through to him.” he said.   
  


Inside the airlock, Bucky was also panicking, when Fury addressed him personally.   


“ _ Barnes. Calm down. _ ”

“Sir, you gotta help me…” Bucky whimpered.   


“Twenty seconds.” the computer announced.   
  
“...tell them to open the door…” Bucky begged him.    


“ _ They can't do that, Barnes. Now listen carefully… _ ”   
  
Fury moved faster and faster, his breath echoing in his helmet. He could already see the exterior airlock just beyond a deep chasm in the ship's superstructure. He had to be careful now. If he missed that one jump, Barnes would not be the only man to die today.   
  
He doesn't hesitate but leapt, soaring across the chasm towards the airlock.   
  
“...I don't want to die...” Bucky whimpered.   
  
“You're not going to die! Not today! Now I want you to do exactly as I say and I'm gonna get you out of there alive, alright?” he barked.

  
In the airlock, Bucky was shivering.   


“But I can't...I gotta get out of here...Sir, please…”   
  
“ _ I won't let you die. Besides, Wilson would have my hide, if I did. He made me promise to get you to safety. _ ”   
  
Bucky let out a snort. That was true. Captain or not, Sam would skin Fury alive, if he didn’t keep his promise. The thought alone seemed to finally calm him down a bit.   
  
“O-okay…” he stammered.

 

“ _ Now listen and do as I say. _ ”    
  
Bucky took a shaky breath and followed Fury’s hurried instructions:   
  
“Alright, I want you to tuck yourself into a crouched position and shut your eyes as tight as you can!”

 

“Five seconds,” Wanda announced inside the bay.   
  
Outside, Fury finally landed on the superstructure opposite the exterior airlock.    
  
“Exhale, everything you got, Barnes. We can't have any air in those lungs of yours. Blow it all out…”   
  
  


Inside the airlock, Bucky curled into a fetal crouch and covered his eyes.   
  
“Oh god…” the engineer whispered.   
  
He wheezed out all his air...

  
  
Fury squatted on the girder, ready to push off. He especially focused on the five meters of space between him and the airlock...    
  
The outer doors opened...   
  
The rush of escaping atmosphere carried Bucky’s body out...   
  
Fury pushed off…caught Bucky's body… sent them both back towards the open Airlock...

Particles of glittering ice formed on Bucky’s body. His veins bulged. Blood fountained from his nose and mouth, forming a red icicle over his face.   
  
Fury pulled him back into the Airlock. 

Five seconds passed since the airlock door opened.   
  
Fury closed the Airlock behind them. Air hissed back into the chamber. Bucky’s body hit the deck as ‘normal’ gravity exerted itself.   
  
Fury opened the Inner Door. Steve, Wanda and Sharon rushed in.   
  
“Oh God...Buck…” Steve breathed, as he nestled Bucky’s head into his lap.   
  
Sharon immediately put a tube in Bucky’s mouth, feeding him oxygen, while Wanda grabbed his wrist, checking his vital signs.   
  
“I've got a pulse. He's alive…” she cried out in relief.   
  
“Pressure?” Sharon asked.

Wanda checked it. “90 over 50 and falling…”   
  
“He's crashing…” Sharon cursed.   
  
Suddenly, blood bubbled from Bucky’s mouth and eyes. He gasped, then screamed, spraying blood from his mouth, covering not only Sharon, but also Wanda and half of the Airlock Bay with it.

“Oh god…” Steve whimpered. There was so much blood. Bucky’s blood.   
  
“No, that’s good, Steve. Means he can breathe.” Sharon put a reassuring hand on the commander’s trembling shoulder. ”But let's get him to Medical now. Go, go!” she spurred them back into action.   
  
Steve scooped his injured partner up in his arms, all but running from the airlock bay back to Medical, Wanda and Sharon hot on his heels.

Fury stayed behind. Sitting there, totally exhausted, he reached up and pulled his helmet off.

He was really getting too old for this sort of shit.

  
  
On the bridge, Tony sat motionlessly in his chair at the engineering station, staring blank-eyed into the blue, while listening to the drama enfolding over the intercom.

“ _ Intubate, pure oxygen feed, get the nitrogen out of his blood… _ ” Sharon shouted frantically.

“ _ His peritoneum has ruptured, _ ” Wanda replied.   
  
“ _ One thing at a time. Let's keep him breathing for now. Start the drip, 15 ml fibrinogen. Christ, he's bleeding out… _ ”

“ _ God, no. You have to fight, Buck. Do it for us… _ ” Steve’s voice broke. “ _ Please don’t let this be the end of the line… Just don’t. _ ”

Tony stroked the engineering console lovingly and tenderly, like a lover would do, while repeating his mantra over and over again.

“Soon, my love, soon…”

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	15. Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some truths are revealed...

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Steve rested his head against the cool glass of the gravity couch, his tired eyes never leaving the now sleeping figure of his best guy, floating in the green jelly. For once, the blond looked like all of his 150 years. 

Saving Bucky had been a close call. Five seconds of being exposed to the deadly combination of Neptune’s poisonous atmosphere and the icy temperature had been enough to cause some serious internal bleeding. Only their quick reflexes, and Bucky’s version of what Steve had called the ‘Super Soldier Serum’, had managed to prevent the worst case scenario.

In the end, Sharon had decided that it was better to put him back in one of the tanks of the  _ Event Horizon _ , until the repairs of the  _ Singularity  _ were finished and they could put him back into their own tanks.

Steve’s eyes took in every new scar from Bucky’s spontaneous excursion. From the corner of his eyes, he spotted the rest of their merry gang - Stark, Wanda, Sharon and Fury - looking just as exhausted as he did. Wanda was held by Sharon, the older woman giving much-needed comfort to her younger partner.

Sharon threw Steve a small, optimistic smile when she caught him looking at her. “He'll live, Steve… provided that we ever make it back to civilisation.”   


“We'll make it,” Fury interjected.   
  
Steve wanted to believe them. He really did. He really wanted to believe that the  _ Singularity  _ would be whole again so that they could leave that godforsaken place. But one look at his handheld device squished even that little spark of hope.

“You sure? The carbon dioxide levels will reach toxicity in four hours,” Steve murmured, looking back at Bucky’s ravaged form floating in the tank.  
  
Fury took a step forwards. “Wanda, we need to know what happened to the crew. Before it happens to us.”

Wanda sighed, not taking her eyes off her not-brother. As much as she didn’t want to go away (It had been her fault after all, what had happened to Bucky), Nick was probably right. They needed to know what had happened to the other crew. So she nodded.

“I'll get back to the log. But on the bridge… I can’t and I won't go back in there...” she said. She couldn’t return to Medical. Not with Bucky’s life essence all over the place.   
  
“Okay. Thanks.” Fury nodded in agreement.   
  
Wanda gave Sharon a small peck on her cheek, before she turned around and exited the bay at a small bay. The rest of them continued to stare at Bucky’s injured form, until Steve broke the silence.   
  
“Buck said something about ‘The dark inside me…’ What exactly did he mean by that, Mr. Stark?” 

Tony was lurking in one of the corners again, and shrugged his shoulders. “It means nothing,” he replied nonchalantly.   
  
“Is that supposed to be your ‘expert opinion?’” Fury demanded. “The only answers we've had out of you so far, are either ‘I don't know,’ or ‘That’s nonsense.’ I want a real answer for a change.”

Tony huffed. “Barnes just tried to kill himself. That man is clearly insane.”

It only resulted in Steve clenching his fists so hard that a loud cracking echoed through the chamber. Tony winced at the sound and he almost dared not to look at the blond commander. But Tony had always been a masochist and so he did look at him, head held high.

Steve looked beyond angry. He looked like a pissed off pitbull terrier ready to pounce. “Buck. Is. Not. Insane,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “He’d never do something like that.”   
  
That was the point where Sharon decided that it was best to step between the two, before they started a fight. 

“How would you explain your own behavior, Stark?” she asked him.   
  
Tony blinked, before he turned to her.

“What?”   
  
“On the bridge. You said ‘it’ wanted you. What exactly is ‘it?’”   
  
Tony glanced at Bucky. But he didn’t see the younger engineer in there. He saw the nude body of Pepper, burn scars all over her; her stomach clawed from inside out so that he could see the head of his unborn child. She was floating there in all her dead glory and all that Tony could do was admiring her unliving beauty.   
  
“I said that?” he muttered.   
  
“Yes. You did,” Sharon repeated impatiently.   
  
Tony blinked. The vision of Pepper was gone and Bucky floated in the grav couch instead. Tony turned back to the others.   
  
“I don't remember saying that.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I'm insane, too,” he continued, before he turned on his heel and left the room.   
  
Fury sighed in frustration. He followed Tony out of the Gravity Couch Bay and into the corridor. “Stark, I want to know what caused that noise. I want to know why one of my crew tried to throw himself out of the airlock.”   
  
“Thermal changes in the hull could have caused the metal to expand and contract very suddenly, causing reverberations…” Tony tried to give him just that. But Fury didn’t believe him.   
  
“That's bullshit and you know it! You built this fucking ship and all I've heard from you is bullshit!” Fury exploded, seizing Stark by the collar. Tony made no move to free himself from Fury’s grip.

“What do you want me to say?” Tony asked him bitterly.   
  
“You said this ship creates a gateway…”   
  
“Yes…”   
  
“Gateway to what? Where did this ship go? Where did you send it? Obviously not Proxima Centauri.”   
  
“I don't know.”   
  
“Where has it been for the past seven years?”   
  
“I don't know.”   
  
“The ‘Other Place’. What is that?”   
  
“ _ I don’t know! _ ” Tony shouted right into Fury’s face. A few seconds passed by, before he calmed down visibly. “Really, I don't know. There's a lot of things going on here that I don't understand. However, truth takes time.”   
  
Fury let go off Tony, before he turned to go back to the Gravity Couch Bay, throwing a disappointed look at the engineer. “That’s our problem, Mr. Stark. Time is exactly what we don't have.”   
  
Fury moved back through the maze of the ship, heading for the Bridge. As he reached a junction, he stopped abruptly, when he heard the distant, inhuman cry of a dying soul.    
  
“Don't leave me!” a well-known voice wailed.   
  
Fury whirled around like a startled cat, his eye darting wildly, staring down the branching corridors.   
  
Nothing. 

There was nothing.

No one.

He was completely alone. Fury leaned against the wall, his hands suddenly shaking. The captain sank down to the floor, resting his head in his hands.

He was really going crazy.

The grotesque ship continued its journey in Neptune’s orbit, just as its largest moon Triton eclipsed the faraway sun and darkness swallowed everything.   
  
After recovering from his minor breakdown, Fury arrived back at the Gravity Couch Bay at the same time as Sharon entered it again, checking Bucky’s vital signs on the tank’s display. Rogers was nowhere to be seen, so Fury assumed that his second-in-command was back on the bridge.    


“Any change?” he asked quietly.   
  
Sharon turned towards his direction, gripping her chest in surprise, as she spotted Fury just sitting there, barely visible in the dark.   
  
“Gods, don’t do that. You gave me a fright. I don’t really need that on this ship,” she gasped, her heart skipping a few beats at the scare. “And no. No change. But I've analyzed Bucky’s blood samples. Aside from the abnormal results due to his version of Steve’s serum, there's no evidence of excessive levels of carbon dioxide. 

Fury laughed grimly. “Of course not. Barnes just climbed into the airlock, because he felt like it. Just one of those things,” he deadpanned. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I swore I'd never lose another man. I came close today. Real close.”   
  
“Another man? You mean this Phil Coulson?” Sharon asked back, curious to hear about the man, since her Captain had always refused to talk about the finer details of his involvement with the  _ Triskelion. _   
  
Fury nodded and pulled his service medal from beneath his jumpsuit - a black vibranium disc streaked with fine lines of gold and Wakanda’s royal insignia on it, a Black Panther, looking ready to attack.   
  
“It was on the  _ Triskelion  _ near the end of the Inhuman Civil War. There was this bosun - Phil Coulson. He was the same age as Barnes and a lot like him. He got caught, when the pressure doors were sealed. One closed on his left arm. Severed it at the wrist. The pain of that must have been... 

“...Indescribable…” Sharon muttered.

Fury nodded and continued. “However, he passed out and…” He trailed off, his eye staring somewhere in the distance. Sharon waited patiently. Finally he spoke again.  “I...I tried to go back for him, to save him, but I couldn't get to him in time. The fire... Have you ever seen fire in zero gravity? It's like a liquid, sliding over everything. It was like a wave breaking over him - a wave of fire. And then he was gone.” 

Fury paused dramatically. “I never told anyone about this until now. But this ship knew, Sharon. It knows about the  _ Triskelion _ , it knows about Coulson. It knows our secrets. It knows what we're afraid of. And now you're going to tell me it's carbon dioxide.”   
  
“No,” was Sharon’s only answer. Still, Fury saw something shifting in her expression.   
  
“What is it?” he probed.   


Sharon sighed. “I've been listening to the transmission. And I think Wakanda made a mistake in the translation.”   
  
Fury frowned. He really didn’t like the direction their talk was going. Still, his curiosity outweighed it in the end. “Go on.”   
  
Sharon played the recording again. Stopped it abruptly.   
  
“The translator must have thought it said ‘Liberatis Me’ - ‘Save me.’ But it's not ‘me.’ It's ‘tutemet’ - ‘Save yourself.’”   
  
“It's not a distress call,” Fury mused. “It's a warning.”   
  
“It gets worse.”   
  
Fury stared at her.   
  
“It's very hard to make out. But listen to this final part.” Sharon played the recording again. 

“Do you hear it? Right there.” She stopped the recording again. 

Fury could only make out the part which they had already heard. “Hear what?”   
  
“It sounds like ‘ex inferis.’ ‘Ex’ means ‘from;’ ‘inferis’ derived from ‘Inferi.’ It means ‘Hell.’”   
  
“Save yourself. From Hell.” 

Fury couldn’t believe his ears. “What are you trying to say? That this ship is possessed?”   
  
Sharon shook her head. “No. I don't believe in that sort of  thing. But if Stark is right, this ship has passed beyond the boundaries of our universe, of reality. Who knows where this ship has been... What it has seen… And what it's brought back with it.”   
  
She looked at Fury. He did not have an answer for her. Just then, the uncomfortable silence between them was luckily interrupted by the intercom crackling and Sam’s voice.   
  
“ _ Captain Fury, I think we're ready to re-pressurize the Singularity _ .”    
  
Fury looked at Sharon, who looked just as relieved as he did. Finally some good news.  “On my way.”    


Half an hour later, Fury stood in his EVA suit in the darkened bridge of his ship, twisting a manual valve.   
  
“Alright. Let’s do it, Wilson.”   
  
At the hull section, Sam looks at Nat and Clint.   
  
“Cross your fingers, guys.” Sam sighed.

“We already have,” Clint said. “Just do it. I want back on our ship.”   
  
Sam took a deep breath and flipped a switch in the open panel. A moment later, mist flowed from the vents into the bridge, filling it with atmosphere. Fury watched with Argus eyes, as the pressure rose on his suit gauged.   
  
Clint whooped with joy over the com.   


“ _ It's holding... She's holding! _ ” he cheered.   
  
“ _ We're still venting trace gasses. Gimme twenty minutes to plug the hole, _ ” Sam stated.   
  
“Do it, Wilson. Romanoff, Barton, come back. I need you here on the ship,” Fury commanded.

“Okay. We’re there in five.” Natasha said, before the transmission ended.   
  
Fury removed his helmet and took a deep breath. “Ah, finally back in business.”

  
  
On the bridge of the Event Horizon, Wanda sat still at the security station, staring  at the screen with tired eyes. The log in front of her was still distorted.    
  
Frustrated about her lack of success, she typed in a series of instructions, before she got to her feet. She really needed some caffeine in her bloodstream. Right now. She turned to Steve, who had joined her not long ago. The blond was sitting at the comm station, staring out of the window at Sam, who was still doing some last minute repairs on the hull. Steve was holding a white plastic cup in his right hand.    
  
“Steve, you got any coffee?” she asked him.

Steve jerked out of his train of thoughts and looked at her, then at his cup.   
  
“Only a cold one,” he said.   
  
“I don't care,” Wanda replied. Coffee was coffee.

Steve passed it to her. Wanda took it gratefully and sipped on the lukewarm liquid, not realizing that on the screen behind her, the refining process accelerated... pieces coming together like a jigsaw...   
  
Wanda turned around to go back to work. She saw the screen and her eyes widened in horror. The coffee slipped from her hand, the black liquid spilling onto the floor.   
  
“Steve!” she squeaked.   
  
Steve turned to her to see what was going on. He, too, saw the screen and blanched.   
  
“Sweet Jesus. Nick...You have to see this!” Wanda screamed into the comm.    


They had found the puzzle’s last clue and the truth was far more awful than expected.

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	16. Alea Iacta Est (The die is cast)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They watch the whole log entry and Fury makes a decision...

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_ “I just want to say how proud I am of  my crew. I'd like to name my station heads…” Pierce moves the camera to each mentioned crew member. “...Brock Rumlow, Jack Rollins, Helmut Zemo, Vasily Karpov, Georges Batroc and Dottie Underwood. _

_ “Also, lots of Kudos to Tony Stark, Bruce Banner and all the other scientists, who made all of this possible.”  _

_ “Oh my god, that sounds like your Academy Awards winning speech.” Rumlow snickers. Rollins smacks the back of his head. Brock huffs, but shuts up. _

_ The face of an older man appears. He is about sixty years old and handsome for his age. His blond hair is streaked with grey, giving him the appearance of a wise man. _

_ “Well thank you, Brock, for this completely uncalled for comment. Although it’s not the Academy Awards...I had a speech prepared and I wrote it down but I...Well, I can't find it. So, off to your stations. We got a trip to make.” _

_ The crew gets up and go to their respective stations, while Pierce takes place in his Captain’s Chair, his face flushed with excitement. _

_ “Everyone ready?” _

_ Collective nodding. _

_ “Then let’s go. Or as the old romans would say: Ave, atque, vale. Hail and farewell.” _

_ A burst of static…. _

_....the camera image shaking hard… _

_...before it clears up, only a little bit distorted by static and roll…. _

_ ….showing the horrors unfolding right in front of the camera lens… _

_...one man dislocating his shoulder with a wet popping sound, while shoving his arm down his own throat; Blood bubbling from his nose; Pulling his stomach out of his mouth with a shucking sound.... _

_...Rumlow and Rollins fucking each other behind the man, both of them covered with blood; Rollins biting through Rumlow’s neck, the other man’s head lolling to the other side; Rollins burying his face in the torn flesh while Rumlow thrusts into Rollins over and over again… _

_...Pierce presiding over them all, his eyes nothing but bloody holes in his face; his hands reaching out in a morbid offering to an unknown god; in his palm, his eyes; Pierce speaking in a not human voice to them… _

_ “Liberate Tutemet Ex Inferis…” _

 

Fury stopped the rer-run of the recording. No one said a word. Wanda looked miserable. She hadn’t been able to watch the horrifying scene again after the first time with just Steve. Steve, on the other side, was just as pale at the sight of so much blood and gore. Tony sat at his station, his face a blank mask of indifference. Fury just looked tired.

“What the hell was that, Nick?” Wanda whispered, her body shaking like a leaf.

Fury looked grim. He thought about what Sharon had said about the translation mistakes. Maybe she had been right with her presumption that this ship had been in Hell and now come back after all those years, for what reason ever. He knew he had to make a decision now, before they all ended up like Pierce and his crew.

“We’re leaving.” he declared.

A sentence that pulled Tony out of his semi-catatonic state instantly. He looked unbelievingly at the Captain.

“You can't do that. Your orders are specific,” he protested loudly.

Fury’s head whipped around.   
  
“Mr. Stark, my orders were to rescue the crew and salvage the ship. The crew is obviously dead. This ship,  _ your _ ship, killed them. And now it's killing us. It already tried it with Barnes. I have no desire to end up like Pierce.”   
  
Tony stared at Fury, as if the Captain had grew a second head.

“You're insane. You've lost your mind,” he stated.   
  
“Maybe you're right. But it's still my command and I have leeway to abort when I feel there is an unacceptable threat to my ship and my crew. And I for one think there is one. That’s my final word.” Fury turned back to his crew members. “Rogers, download all the files from the  _ Event Horizon's _ computers. Wanda, help Barton to finish moving the CO2 scrubbers back onto the Singularity. And tell Wilson to hurry the fuck up.”

“What about Bucky?” Steve asked.

“First things first. We’ll move him as soon as the  _ Singularity  _ is ready for departure.”

Steve nodded and immediately spurred into action, while Wanda turned on her heel and left the bridge in a hurry.   
  
“You can’t… Don't… don't do this…” Tony stammered in shock. 

Fury turned back to him. “I can and I will. Consider it done.”

Tony glared at him, but chose to say nothing for the time being.

 

After a quick visit in Medical to inform Sharon of Fury’s decision, Wanda headed towards the second containment of the ship, where she opened hidden panels in the intricate wall decoration, revealing carbon dioxide containers behind each panel. The Med Tech pulled two of them out of their enclosure and lifted them up, on each shoulder. 

Carrying the heavy carbon dioxide scrubbers through the airlock, she felt better every step back towards the  _ Singularity  _ and normality insofar. Barton was surprised to see her on board and stopped her, taking one scrubber from her.   
  
“What's going on, Wanda?” he asked, confused, while they put down the scrubbers.   
  
“Carbon dioxide scrubbers for the  _ Singularity _ . Nick pulled the plug on the mission,” she answered, not mentioning the horrible sequence from the footage.   
  
Clint’s eyes widened and he let out a loud whoop of real joy.   
  
“Are you for real?” he probed. Wanda nodded. 

Clint let out another cheer. “About goddamn time. I was already thinking we were beginning to take  roots here.”

“Me too. But can we get the rest of the scrubbers in the meantime? Fury’s orders.”

Clint clapped his hands together. “With pleasure, darling. Lead the way.”   
  


Meanwhile, Fury had left the bridge, too, and headed for the airlock. Tony followed him. 

He definitely wasn’t happy with Fury’s decision. What would happen to his ship without him? It needed him and he needed it. Fury had no right to abandon it like this.

“What about my ship?” the engineer hissed.   
  
“We will take the  _ Singularity _ to a safe distance and then launch tac missiles at the  _ Event Horizon _ until I am satisfied that she has been destroyed,” Fury explained, a certain hint of satisfaction in his voice. And after an overly dramatic pause, he added, ”Fuck this ship.”   


Tony stopped all of a sudden and gaped at the captain in disbelief. “You... You can't do that! That’s my baby.”

Fury stopped, too, and turned to look at the engineer. “Watch me,” he growled.   
  
He turned to walk away. Tony hurried after him, grabbed the captain, and wheeled him around, almost frenzied.   
  
“You can't kill her. I won't let you! I lost her once and I will not lose her again!” he shouted, his expression mad and feverish. “I won’t!”   
  
Tony lifted his arm, ready to strike the other man, if necessary. Fury shoved Stark back into the wall, and Tony hit it hard. The two stared at each other, neither of them making moves to back down. Adversaries, the two of them...   
  
Until the lights went out again, the emergency lighting bathing the corridor in the dark colour of blood.   
  
“ _ Sir, come in… _ ” Steve’s piped up over the intercom, breaking the silence for good.   
  
Fury let go of Tony. His single eye scanned the dark wall for the intercom, until he found the small status lights of the intercom. He touched it, activating the intercom that way.

“Rogers, what the hell is going on?” he barked.

  
  
On the bridge, Steve peered at the Engineering board, before he spoke into the intercom again.  _ “We just lost main power again.” _   
  
In the Main Access Corridor, close to the airlocks, Fury and Tony were barely visible in the darkness. Fury cursed inwardly. He should have known that this was bound to happen.    
  
“Goddammit! Rogers, get those files and vacate. I want off this ship,” he ordered, releasing the intercom.   


“You can't leave. She won't let you,” Tony whispered, as he slipped out of Fury’s reach and backed into the darkness.

Fury whirled around, frowning, when he could barely see the Engineer anymore. Really. That man was just as stubborn as his old man. Starks.

“Just get your gear back onto the Singularity, Mr. Stark, or you'll find yourself looking for a ride home,” Fury growled.   
  
Tony shook his head, before he became one with the darkness. “You still don’t understand. I’m not going anywhere. I  _ am _ home,” he breathed, his voice taking on an eerie undertone.   
  
Before Fury could reply, the regular lighting snapped back on...   
  
Fury blinked and looked around. Tony was nowhere to be seen. As if he had vanished into his very own black hole....   
  
“Stark? STARK!” he shouted. Of course, he didn’t get an answer.   
  
Infuriated, Fury slammed his right fist on the intercom. “All hands. Stark is missing. I want him found and restrained.”

Breathing heavily, Fury opened the airlock and headed over to his ship. There were still a lot of things to be done before they could leave this godforsaken place.

  
  
On the bridge, Steve gathered all the files and disks, before he shut down the consoles - one by one.

In Medical, Sharon did the same with all of her blood samples.

 

In the Second Containment, Clint and Wanda finally finished removing CO2 scrubbers from panels in the walls.   
  
“Let's go, let's go. Honestly, this place freaks me out…” Clint muttered, taking two more of the heavy scrubbers on his shoulders.

Wanda took another, closing the last panel behind her with her free hand. “Last one.”

She followed Clint down the First Containment towards the Main Access Corridor through the ‘Tunnel of Dizzying Terror,’ carrying the last case of scrubbers. She began to lag behind, when...   
  
A male giggle echoed down the First Containment. Wanda stopped, her eyes frantically searching for the source of the giggle.   
  
“Pietro?” she breathed.   
  
She looked back to the Core Room and forth towards Clint’s retreating back. Was her brother really here or just another try from the sip to prevent them from leaving? There was only one way to find out. Despite her senses screaming in alert, Wanda turned and ran back to the Second Containment, following the lanky, tall shadow, who was scurrying there.   
  
Again, she hears the male giggle that was so typically her brother. From afar, the scraping of metal on metal was echoing through the silence. Bracing herself for everything, she slowly moves forward into the darkness of the Second Containment. Finally, she saw an open access panel and looked inside - a narrow tube, vanishing into darkness. 

A male voice echoed from far away, calling her by her name again.   
  
“Wanda…”   
  
The Med Tech closed her eyes and took a deep breath, before she ducked her head and entered the access duct, calling her brother’s name.   
  
“Pietro...?”

She shouldn’t have been so surprised when she didn’t receive an answer. Maybe it really had just been just a trick her anxious mind had been playing her.

So, Wanda kept torturing herself and crawled on further into the deep blackness of the vessel.

  
  
On the  _ Singularity _ , Fury sat at Bucky’s engineering position, flipping a series of switches…

Outside, Sam was still working on the patch as the ship's running lights came on in sequence. The Rescue Technician smiled, because now it was much easier to work than with his helmet lights, no matter how little power they might have.

So, he continued his work to finish it quickly. That way, not only Bucky would get home in time, but them, too.   
  
On the smaller ship’s bridge, lights flickered, then illuminated...   
  
For once, Fury allowed a small smile on his normally stoic face, whispering a hushed “Thank you,” to his ship.   


“ _ Skipper, we got a problem. _ ” Barton’s voice piped up suddenly, interrupting the blissful humming of the consoles.   
  
“Now what?” he grunted in annoyance.

“ _ Wanda has gone missing, _ ” Barton replied abashedly.

Fury’s shoulders slumped down. One step forward, two steps back. First Barnes, now Wanda. Hopefully, she was still alive. He massaged the bridge of his nose, before he answered Barton.

“I’m coming.”

  
“I don’t understand. She was right behind me. I turn around, she's gone. She could be anywhere., Clint explained to Fury. Both men were standing in the middle of the Main Corridor. 

“And she was still there, when you were still in the First Containment?”

Clint nodded. 

Fury sighed. “Alright. Prep the  _ Singularity  _ for launch.I'll find her.”

“Alright Skipper,” Barton replied and heaved his two scrubbers back on his shoulders.

Fury watched him go, then turned his head towards the glooming entrance to the First Containment. He had an inkling where Wanda had disappeared to.

  
  
Wanda moved further through the duct, until she reached a junction. She hated being in the dark. Anything, or anyone, could be here with her, out there in the dark. Too bad that she needed her hands to use her powers. That way, she could have brought some light into this blackness.

Suddenly, there was it again.   
  
The whisper of a well-known voice, too faint for words. Wanda turned...   
  
Behind her, a lanky figure moved very quickly across the corridor. Of course, Wanda didn’t notice. As she turned back, she was a split second too late to see it. Still, the whispers drew her onward.   
  
“Pietro? Pietro, please. Wanda is here…” she pleaded with whoever was there.   
  
Faint laughter was the only answer she received. She followed the sound, now climbing into a vertical shaft that took her higher and higher...   
  
“Hold on, Pietro, your little sister is coming…”   
  
She finally reached the top and pulled herself up from the vertical shaft onto a catwalk, which snaked between huge oily machinery, just in time to see the lanky form of her brother running (Oh my god, he was running) from her, disappearing into the gloom ahead.   
  
“Pietro…” she shouted and ran forward into a junction. She didn’t notice the lights flickering red.   
  
“Pietro?”   
  
“Little Sister…” her brother’s accented voice called out to her. Wanda had to squint her eyes to make out her brother’s silhouette in the flickering darkness ahead. She could barely believe that he was here. Pietro should be back on Earth in Sokovia, sitting in his special wheelchair, cared for by their mother.

But here he was, going, running and standing on his own two legs. Something they both had imagined for so long.   


“Oh my gosh, you can walk… Pietro, you can walk… This is so wonderful,” she sobbed in joy.

Pietro tilted his head at her.   
  
“Wanna show you something, Little Sis. You need to come here…” he cooed, luring her closer to him.   
  
He held his arms out to her. Wanda, who could never refuse a request from him, stepped forward, reaching for her brother...   
  
...only to fall into an open access hatch, hidden in the dark...   
  
...a twenty meter drop...   
  
Wanda hit the metal floor hard and with a loud thud; she lay before the Core as a morbid offering of flesh and blood to a dark deity. Her legs were twisted beneath her, both of them completely shattered.  Her chest heaved. She was still alive, as rivers of her life essence ran from the corners of her eyes and mouth. Dark blood pooled around her head, creating a shing red halo, making her look like a fallen angel.   
  
She looked above as she called for Pietro, even more streaming out of her mouth with every heavy gasp. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Her heart made funny noises and seemed to slow down with every passing second. But Wanda had only eyes for her brother.

“Pietro…” she whispered.    


Pietro peered down from the top of the shaft, where he was sitting and dangling his crippled legs. He giggled and cClapped his hands in childlike glee.

Wanda smiled and stopped fighting against the inevitable.

Her heart did the same.   
  


Tony wandered into First Containment, brooding and speaking to himself. How could Fury dare to threaten his baby and try to make him leave? How dare he…?   
  
“I won't. I won't leave. This is my ship,” Tony whispered to himself.

He entered the Second Containment. He stopped short and froze as he saw Wanda’s body lying twisted and broken before the Core. Like a sacrifice on an Altar of Infinite Darkness. Without thinking, he rushed to her.   
  
“Oh no. Ms. Maximoff...?” he whispered.   


He reached out to touch her but pulled his hand back, when he sees her eyes. Her eyes were as black as the Singularity of a black hole, a massive hemorrhage darkening the irises. It was clear to him that she was dead.

Tony grabbed his head, as if he were in immense pain.   


“Why did you do that? You didn't have to do that...I could have dealt with her otherwise,” he said to himself. Or anyone else, who was here.   
  
“Tony!”   
  
Tony looked up from Wanda’s corpse, his eyes widening.   
  
Pepper, his beautiful Pepper, stood before the Core. She was naked. Her skin was so pale, but still the most magnificent thing, which he had ever seen. Her right side was burnt, but still a feast for his eyes. Her strawberry-red hair hung in her face, covering her milk-white eyes. Her hand stroked her prominent baby bump, carrying his unborn child...   
  
_ Pepper was sitting in the Co-Pilot's seat of Tony’s private spaceship that would take her to Stark Space Station for the time being, until their child was born. It was bound to inherit both their powers, so it was too dangerous to stay on Earth with its newly erected Accords, which forced Inhumans and enhanced individuals to register. _

_ Tony had been against them and fought them with all his influence and power. Still, it wasn’t enough and so he had begged her to leave the planet for the time being. At first, Pepper had fought tooth and nail against it. But in the end, she had given in as usual. _

_ On the Pilot’s seat, Tony’s friend and security chief Happy was waiting for the countdown to get to zero. Under them, the engines began to hum. _

_ Just two more minutes. _

Tony stared at his wife in shock. She walked slowly to him. Slowly. She stopped in front of him, her arms hanging motionlessly at her sides. Tony clenched his fists. She was really here. After all these months, she was back with him. He needed to reach out for her. Needed to touch her. Needed to feel her skin again.

So he did it, putting his hands on her hips. He slumped down on the floor to his knees. He pressed his face into her swollen belly and cried, loud sobs wracking his tired body...   
  
_ One minute left.   _

_ Pepper was nervous, because it would be her first time in space. Unlike Tony, she wasn’t used to travelling higher than the average airplane could reach. _

_ Suddenly, all warning lights went on and alerts started blaring through the cabin. Happy started frantically pushing buttons and switches, as the hum of the drive grew louder and the whole ship started vibrating, when it shouldn’t vibrate. _

_ Panicking, Pepper embraced her swollen belly protectively. _

_ What the hell was happening? _

Pepper reached down, one hand fumbling with the zipper of his overall, zipping it down to the end. Slowly, her arms cradled his head. She slid down on him.  Touched his dick after all that time. Pulled it out. Straddled him.   
  
_ She was the first to smell the smoke. Being a firestarter herself, she could sense when a fire was close. Normally, she wasn’t afraid of the hot element. It was part of her being. But only to a certain degree. Anything higher than that and she’d merge up with the element, irreversibly becoming a part of it. _   
  
Tony raised his head up to her breasts, his eyes closed. She remained unnaturally still, only her hips rocking back and forth. Tony’s mouth opened, a gasp escaping it as he entered her, became one with her once again.   
  
_ She reached out with her mind to locate the source of the fire. Her eyes widened, when she saw the two bundles connected to the engines, which were about to propel them into the Earth orbit. _

_ A digital timer on both bundles counted down to zero. _

_ There were thirty seconds left.   _   
  
She caressed his face. Lifted his face to hers. Her slack mouth pressed a surprisingly tender kiss on Tony’s forehead. Her long, strawberry blonde hair hung in front of her eyes.   
  
_ Ten seconds left. _

_ Pepper could barely breathe. This was bound to happen, when you’re the wife and CEO of Earth second most powerful Technology firm. There were always people who wanted to erase every single atom of your being. _

_ They had tried it with Tony in Afghanistan, but failed. Now they tried it with her and their unborn child. And it seemed that they would succeed this time. _

_ Five seconds left. _

_ Pepper took one last look at the blue sky. Tony would be devastated over their deaths. She could already see lots of alcohol and endless hours in his workshop in the near future. Hopefully, Bruce and Rhodey could keep him away from that. Or at least try to. _

_ Three seconds left. _

_ Pepper stroked her bump. Tears welled up in her eyes, when she felt the kick of her child. She cried for the lost life and its father, whom it’d never meet. _

_ Two seconds left _

_ She could hear Happy communicating with the flight director, waiting for the takeoff. _

_ One second left. _

_ The vibrating became worse and worse. Pepper grabbed her right armrest tightly, while her left hand stayed on her belly. _

_ Zero seconds left. _

_ The bundles exploded with a loud bang, which sounded all though the ship, setting off a series of explosions. Happy looked surprised, while Pepper looked resigned. She closed her eyes.  _

_ A split later, a fireball reached their cabin. Pepper felt the heat as it washed over them, definitely hotter than her limit. It burned into her skin, into every fiber of her being. She cried out as her child tried to claw its way to the outside, only to be pulverized into ashes. _

_ Beside her, Happy hadn’t had enough time to say something, before he turned to ashes, too. Pepper lasted a little bit longer than him in this blaze, but when the core temperature finally reached 6000°C and it was as hot as on the surface of the sun, Pepper could feel herself becoming one with her element. _

_ Then there was only darkness and heat left. _

Tony gazed up at his Pepper, mesmerized by her everlasting beauty. He took her hand and raised it to his face. She caressed his cheek, leaving bloody scratches behind. But Tony didn’t care. She kept caressing his face, until her perfectly manicured and razor sharp fingernails reached for his eyes...   
  
A muffled scream ripped through the silence of the Second Containment Seal. It began as a human sound and…

It ended as something completely different, engulfed by a blaze of golden and black flames.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	17. Dead inside (and outside)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shit is about to hit the fan...

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

An inhuman scream sounded through the Event Horizon.

         

In Medical, Sharon was gathering the last of her taken blood samples when the scream reached her. Startled, she dropped some of the vials, the fragile tubes shattering into tiny pieces.

  
Steve was almost done with his work when his extraordinary hearing picked up the  inhuman sound through the bridge. Immediately, he tensed up, all his senses starting  warn him of danger. He just hoped that it hadn’t been Bucky’s scream. Or it wouldn’t be the first time that he’d lost it.

 

Fury was on his way to the bridge to see if Rogers was already done with the back-up of the files, when he heard the inhumane scream echoing through the corridor. The captain turned on the spot in the direction of the cry, moving down the Corridor towards the source. He had an inkling who exactly was the cause of the scream. Hopefully, he was wrong.  


Outside, Sam was finally finished with the last of his repair work. Taking one last look at it, he examined the weld on the baffle plate, knocking on it experimentally. It was solid. “Sturdy as a rock.” he muttered to himself, satisfied, before he contacted Natasha.  
  
“Hey Nat, you there?”

  
Inside the _Singularity_ ,  Natasha was preparing the ship for departure when Sam’s call came in. 

“Of course I’m here. Where else should I be?” she answered nonchalantly, while checking the other stations if they were still working.

“ _Sorry. Just asking if the airlock is clear, girl. I'm coming in._ ”

Natasha rolled her eyes. Really, she wondered how Sam could be so calm right now. Not that she’d do it otherwise. It was one of her better character traits, after all.  
  
“Everything clear. You can come in,” she replied.   
  
“Hey, where can I drop this?” Clint asked as he entered the ship carrying another load of supplies.

“Hold. We can stow it away later.” Nat didn’t take her gaze off the holographic display. She heard him swearing loudly as he tried balancing the load downstairs into the ship’s belly, and couldn’t help but smile fondly. Clint may be an idiot, but he was her idiot.

Natasha moved to Bucky’s station to check out the status of the drive when she suddenly noticed a movement from the corner of her eye. Her head whipped around just in time to see Stark disappear around a corner, obviously heading for the _Event Horizon_.

She narrowed her eyes. Where the hell was that man going right now?  
  
“Stark! Hey, get your ass back on board!” She didn’t get an answer, so she shouted anew after him. “Mr. Stark!”   
  
But the man was already gone.   
  
Huffing in annoyance, she activated the com. “Nick, come in…”   


Fury was jogging down the main corridor, when the intercom caught his attention.  
  
“ _Nick? I think we got a problem,_ ” Natasha’s husky voice addressed him.

Fury stopped by the next interface and touched it. “What is it, Natasha?”  
  
“ _I just saw Stark on our ship. I have a bad feeling about this, Nick. I think he was messing around on the Singularity_.”

Fury let Nat’s words sink in. If that what she had just indicated was true, then the next disaster was about to happen. She was never wrong about that kind of thing. Suddenly, something sparked and sizzled in the dim light, catching Fury’s eye. Frowning, he looked up, only to realize that one of the explosive charges had been removed from the its mounting in the Corridor. But if it wasn’t here…

Fury’s eye widened. Oh God! That could only mean one thing...  
  
“Natasha, fetch Barton and get the hell out of there!” he barked.   
  
“ _Come again, Nick_ ?”   
  
“Get the hell out of there. One of the explosives is missing from the corridor. I think Stark may have put it on the _Singularity_ .”   
  
On the Singularity, Natasha’s eyes opened wide and her head turned around so fast, almost giving her whiplash.   
  
“ _Get off the Singularity now and wait for me at the airlock!_ ” Fury bellowed through the intercom.

 

Natasha was about to answer when she heard Clint frantically calling her from below, sounding more than a little bit hysterical. He must have found the explosive. Hopefully.

“Wait a minute, Nick. Clint has found something.”  
  
“ _Natasha, no. GET OUT OF THERE NOW!_ ”   
  
But Natasha had already left her place and all but jumped down into the bowels of the ship, searching for Clint. She found him in the crew Quarters, tearing through storage lockers.   
  
“Where is it, where is it…” Clint muttered.

“Where is what, Clint?” Natasha stopped him.

The blond co-pilot looked at her. “Don’t you hear this beeping sound? It’s so annoying. I want it to stop.”

Natasha’s breath hitched. The sound must belong to the explosive Fury had mentioned. Which also meant that they most likely didn’t have much time left. And it wasn’t as if she wanted to die out here in No Man’s Land, just because Stark had suddenly gone maniac.

“I’ll help you,” she said, before the both of them started rummaging again.

 

After he had lost contact with Natasha, Fury raced down the corridor towards the Airlock, which connected the _Event Horizon_ with the _Singularity_ , all the while trying to contact the redheaded pilot through his earpiece.

“Natasha? Barton? Dammit, can you hear me? Fuck!”

Still no reply. So he continued running down the corridor towards the airlock, towards his ship, towards his family...  
  


The beeping sound was now loud enough to even get Natasha’s attention. She and Clint followed it to a storage compartment. While they rifled through it, the sound became louder and louder.   
  
“Come on. I gotcha...I gotcha…” Clint chanted, while he dug through everything.   
  
The beeping was almost deafening right now. They must be very close.   
  
Clint grabbed a duffel and pulled it out of the compartment. The noise came clearly from within the bag. 

“Ha! I gotcha!” the blond shouted out in triumph, and opened the duffel bag.

Both of them looked inside and froze when they saw the explosive charge from the _Event Horizon_.  

“That son of a bitch,” Natasha swore loudly.

Clint looked at her in confusion. “What does that mean, Nat?”

The redhead gave him a meaningful look and Clint didn’t have to be a genius to know what was going on. And what was about to happen.

“You know I’d have loved to wear that purple dress just for you,” Clint whispered.

“I know,” was Natasha’s only answer. She had never been a woman of many words, but Clint would understand the underlying message just fine.

The beeping became a steady tone.

Clint grabbed Natasha’s cold hand and gave it a slight squeeze. Natasha squeezed back.

White light filled up the _Singularity_ , before a massive explosion rocked the whole ship.

  
Fury had just entered the docking bay as a huge blast knocked him back on his ass. The safety doors closed, sealing off the airlock to prevent loss of pressure. 

“NOOO!” the captain screamed, as he was forced to watch his beloved ship being blown apart, taking his two pilots and his Rescue Tech with her.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪          

Sam had travelled halfway through the airlock when he was temporarily blinded by a dazzling white light. With spots dancing right before his eyes, he watched in horror as the silent explosion tore the _Singularity_ into two pieces. The shockwave tore the ship clean in two and yanked Sam forcefully along in its wake as everything spiralled away from the _Event Horizon_ . Metal shards filled the space like confetti between the mangled halves of the _Singularity_.

 

But Sam wasn’t the only one that stared, horrified, at the loss of their ship, their home. On the bigger vessel, Steve slumped down on the cold floor, silent tears running down his face. He watched as one piece was propelled away from them by the blast, taking the small, red-suited figure with him.  What had he done to deserve to lose and come close to losing all the people he loved? First Bucky, now Sam.

Although it took all of his willpower not to take the nearest sharp object and break one of the windows, Steve knew he had to keep a cool head right now. It wouldn’t do anyone good if he lost his head. No matter how much it hurt. No matter how much anger, sadness and sorrow were circulating inside him. He had to stay strong for Bucky, although he still had no idea how to explain to him that Sam was now gone.

 

Sam, however, clung with all of his strength to the forward section, watched the _Event Horizon_ recede more and more as he tumbled further into open space. His frenzied breathing was the only sound out here, echoing deafeningly in his helmet. Although he really liked working out here, he really didn’t imagine he’d find his end out here. And to be honest, he didn’t want to...yet. So instead of panicking, Sam closed his eyes and focused, setting himself on the task of finding a way out of this seemingly hopeless situation. There _had_ to be one. 

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪ 

Fury stared blankly through the window as the wreckage of his ship slowly spiralled away from them, falling deeper and deeper into Neptune’s atmosphere. The _Singularity_ was gone for good. Three more souls added to the red in his ledger. Fury sighed, and finally got to his feet. Then, he hit the intercom with his forearm. He had to inform the others, although he suspected that Rogers already knew.

Damn, this was the whole _Triskelion_ situation all over again. He couldn’t relive this again. He was too old for this shit.   
  
Fury leaned heavily against the wall, as he spoke into the interface.  “Sharon? Can you hear me? The _Singularity’s_ gone. Wilson, Barton, and Natasha are dead.”

  
  
In Medical, Sharon froze when she heard Nick’s tired voice. What had he just said? The _Singularity_ gone? Natasha, Sam, and Clint also gone?

The doctor walked over to Medical’s intercom, touching it. “What happened, Nick?”   
  
“ _Stark. He’s gone psycho. He used one of the explosives from the Corridor._ ”

Sharon closed her eyes for a moment and let out a deep breath. She’d noticed that something was up with Tony. His erratic mood swings. His beating around the bush, when it came to the Core. His episodes. His strange attachment to the ship. A clear case of possession.

No wonder Wanda had had misgivings against him (and it wasn’t because of her brother). Apropos Wanda… Sharon wondered where her partner was. She had wanted to help her after finishing loading the scrubbers on the _Singularity_. And since she had apparently not been on the ship, when it exploded…

Maybe Nick knew where she was.

“Nick, have you heard from Wanda? She-”

All of a sudden, the lights went out again. “Not again,” Sharon groaned. She didn’t  notice the door opening silently behind her. She didn’t hear the silent footsteps approaching her. Just as she turned to get her flashlight...  
  
...she came face to face with Stark.

Sharon gasped as she took in his nightmarish appearance.  
  
Blood crusted his cheekbones, his mouth. There were scratches from fingernails all over his face. But the most gruesome thing was his eyes. Or rather, the total lack thereof.

Stark had no eyes anymore. Only clotted, empty sockets.  
  
Before Sharon could do or scream something, Tony grabbed her by the throat (with surprising strength), cutting her off, before he pushed her against the laboratory wall. Hard.

“Not a single word,” he hissed at her.

Sharon nodded. She didn’t need to have Sam’s empathic powers to know that things looked bad for her. Stark raised his right hand, holding up a small stiletto knife. The doctor gasped. She recognized the knife at once. It belonged to Wanda - a birthday gift from Bucky. But why did Stark have it?

“What did you do to Wanda?” she spat.

Tony’s grip tightened, as he cocked his head at her. “Nothing. My girl did all the hard work. Your little Wanda took a twenty metre dive into an open access hatch, chasing after her big brother.”

Sharon gritted her teeth. It couldn’t be. Wanda couldn’t be dead. Not her strong Wanda… “You’re lying.“ 

Tony’s empty eye sockets stared at her unnervingly.

“We’ll see. But if you want to get back to her so badly, I can lend you a helping hand.” He turned his head towards the table, where Sharon’s surgical instruments were laying, before he faced the doctor again. “You know, I always wanted to play surgeon. I’m sure you don’t mind if I do.”

He banged Sharon’s head hard against the wall. One time, two times, three times. Streaks of pain shot through her head. Dizzied, the blond doctor sank to the floor, unable to move. Tony turned and walked slowly over to Sharon’s duffel. He rummaged through it. His face lit up, when he finally found what he had been looking for.

He turned back to Sharon, holding up the small scalpel gleaming in the semi-darkness.

“Time to play.”

  
In the docking bay, Fury frowned, when Sharon’s question suddenly got cut off. He tried reaching her again. “Sharon, can you hear me?”   
  
Sharon did not answer. The only thing he could hear was the crashing sound of glass and steel resonating over the intercom.

 

Fury didn’t like the sound a bit.  
  
“Sharon? Sharon, come in…” he tried it.

 

Still no answer. Fury closed his eye. Great. Now, Sharon was unreachable, too. Like Wanda. He just hoped that Stark hadn’t gotten to her yet.

  
Tony emerged from the gloomy part of Medical, humming under his breath. His whole outfit was now drenched in dark red.  He searched among the surgical instruments until his blood-caked hands found a needle… and thread...   
  
Fury was still at the intercom. This time, he tried another channel, calling the still missing Wanda. “Wanda… Can you hear me? Wanda…”   


Wanda’s body was still lying before the Core. No sign of Pepper. The intercom crackled.  
  
“ _Wanda, are you there_?” Nick’s voice rang through the otherwise empty room.               

With growing panic, Fury called the bridge. Rogers had to be there. He simply had to. “Rogers, do you copy? Rogers...?”

To his surprise, it wasn’t Steve, who answered him. It was Tony, his voice thick and choked with dirt. “ _I told you… She won't let you leave…_ ”   
  
“Son of a bitch!”   
  
Fury growled. He had enough from that engineer. The captain yanked open a storage locker full of Zero G tools. His eye fell on one tool which seemed suitable for his need. Lifting up a nail gun, he loaded it with ammo before he whirled around and stalked towards the foredecks.

No one messed with him or his crew.  
  
✪♆✪♆✪♆✪   
  
Sam was still clinging to the torn hull of the _Singularity_ , which was rocketing away from the blue Ice Giant. Although he didn’t want to panic, yet, he grew more and more uncomfortable the more he watched the Event Horizon fall farther and farther away.

If he didn’t take action soon, he’d end up in open space only to die of a lack of oxygen because his tanks would have run out of the essential element.

His eyes widened. The oxygen tanks… Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that sooner? He had two separate tanks. He could use one as an impromptu jetpack and the other for breathing. Hopefully, it would last until he got back on the ship.

Checking his oxygen gauge, he found that one tank was still full and the other tank at half. Sam twisted his backpack around, giving him access to the oxygen tanks this way. He sealed off his primary hose and disconnected the full tank. His gauge immediately went to ‘Yellow - Reserve’.  
  
Then, he pointed the full tank away from the Event Horizon and opened it, crossing his all of his fingers mentally...   
  
The blast of pressurized air pushed Sam towards the ship, leaving the wreckage of the _Singularity_ behind.   
  
✪♆✪♆✪♆✪   
  
Fury raced through the corridors to Medical, gripping his nail gun tightly, prepared for everything...   
  
...only to find that nothing could have prepared him for the gruesome sight that awaited him.

The whole lab was covered with red splatters, the fresh ones shining brighter than the older ones. Sharon’s surgical equipment was spread all over one examination table, each instrument tinged with blood.

Sharon herself was suspended above the table, hanging crucified at a St. Andrews Cross-like construction. She was bleeding from her eye sockets, her eyes having been cut out and sewn to her outstretched palms.

But the worst thing had been done to her body. There was a large and deep Y-shaped incision running from her shoulders down to her pelvis. It was half open. Someone, most likely Stark, had dissected her and laid most of her organs carefully on the steel table. If Fury hadn’t been sure that Stark hadn’t gone maniac before… now he was.

That was the most cruel thing he could have done to her.  
  
“Oh my God. Sharon…” he whispered.

To his surprise, Sharon raised her head. She may have been blinded, but she could recognize Fury in every way. And she really needed him to do something for her. Fury on the other side was shocked to see that she was still alive. Her ability must have helped her to prolong the dying process, although he couldn’t see it as a blessing that way.

“Please, Nick...” she pleaded, her voice barely audible.  “This is too much for me to heal.”

Fury gulped. He knew what she wanted him to do.   _Deliver me from this situation_ . But he wasn’t sure if he could. Not after the _Triskelion_ . “Oh, God, Sharon, do I really… Please don’t make me do this again.”     
  
“Please… I want to go to Wanda… I don’t want to leave her alone,” Sharon begged.

Fury’s breath hitched and he closed his eyes for a second. So Wanda was lost, too.

“Please, Nick.”   
  
“Oh God…” Fury took several breaths and gripped his gun tightly. He could do this. He could do Sharon this last favour.   
  
With trembling hands, Fury raised the nail gun.

He fired.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	18. Crossing the Event Horizon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Grand Finale...

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Steve needed to something or he would go crazy.

After his breakdown, he had tried to reach the rest of their crew in vain. No more contact from Fury or Sharon. Not to mention that Wanda was still missing. He had briefly wondered if Fury had found her in the meantime. But with all the shit going on, Steve highly doubted that.

Outside, several flashes lit up for split seconds. Steve flinched, expecting a deafening thunder to follow - but it didn’t. The bridge windows were too thick for that. Still, the storm they were in was far from over - literally and figuratively.

Suddenly, the lights started to flicker again. Steve ignored it. Probably just another short powerdrain. He was thinking about what they could do now. Their oxygen wouldn’t last longer anymore and now that the _Singularity_ was gone…

Their best option was to send a specified signal out to Ceres Station and then retreat into the gravity couches, but only after separating the Foredecks from the Engineering unit. Whatever made the old crew go mad, it had to do with the Core, just as Sam and Wanda had said. And he really didn’t want to be on the same ship as that thing for an extended time period. He just had to re-check with Fury. If he only could reach him through the intercom…

The lights flickered again. Then, the commander heard heavy footsteps at the door. He didn’t turn around, assuming it to be Fury, since his Captain was the only one next to him, who didn’t have the ability to walk on air like the others.

“Sir, I have an idea how we could stay here, until help comes. I could program a different distress signal and we could use the Foredecks as a lifeboat, while we ride out the storm in the gravity couches,” he said, while his fingers flew over the keyboard.

“That won’t help you. She’s not going to let you go.” a voice, which definitely didn’t belong to Fury, said.

Steve’s head whipped around. His eyes widened when he saw Tony standing at the bridge’s entrance. Taking in the engineer’s appearance, he couldn’t help but look at him in disdain. He knew Stark must have had a hand in destroying the _Singularity_.

“What do you want, Stark? Causing more trouble?” he asked in his best Captain’s voice.

Tony’s empty sockets stared at him. “No, I leave that to you. I warned you so many times to get out of my way. You didn’t want to hear. Now you have to live with the consequences. Too bad that Barnes slipped out of our grasp for now.” Tony sneered tauntingly. “But don’t worry. We’ll get him one way or the other.”

Steve stiffened and clenched his fists at the mere mention of Bucky’s name. “You will do no such thing, Stark!” he snarled.

Tony cocked his head. “Or what, Capsicle? You’ll take another dive into Miranda to hibernate for the next hundred years?”

“Stop it!” Steve hissed, his face reddening with anger.

“Or how do you feel about about an open space excursion with Wilson? Tumbling together through the void until you run out of oxygen and slowly suffocate? Doesn’t that sound romantic?”

Steve, now red like an overripe tomato, roared in anger and lunged at the grisly remnants of Stark with raised fists. But to his surprise, the other man showed an agility and quickness which Steve had never expected from Tony. The engineer stepped aside so quickly that Steve was unable to stop his forward momentum and crashed full force into the console which had contained the ship’s log, destroying it for good. Dazed, he laid in the midst of the sizzling cables and circuitry.

Tony approached him slowly, sneering down on him. In one hand, he held a black glittering rope and in his other one a large injection pen.

“Well, Capsicle, time to rope up. After all, I need to give Fury his present, when he arrives.”

 

Fury carefully approached the door to the Bridge. He had no idea what awaited him behind those pressurized doors. But it was good to be prepared. Well, at least he hoped so.

He frowned when he reached the doors and realized that they were open. Fury slipped in, before he stopped. Standing like this in the doorway, he saw a figure sitting right at the helm. He aimed the nailgun at it. “Don’t move, Stark.”  
  
The figure didn't move. Fury slowly circled around the helm, finger resting on the trigger of his gun. But it wasn’t Stark who was sitting there. Dumbstruck, he looked at Rogers, tied up with reinforced vibranium rope in some sort of sadomasochistic pose. It reminded Fury of Kinbaku, an old Japanese form of bondage. Rogers himself was unconscious, probably knocked out with one of the stronger sedatives from Medical. Not for long, given his unique metabolism, but long enough to tie him up like this.

A quiet groan coming from the Super Soldier confirmed his assumption.  
  
“Hold on...I’ll get you outta these…” Fury said. He put down his nail gun down and knelt in front of Steve, loosening the cords. Steve breathed in ragged gasps and opened his eyes, starting to pull off the ropes from his body.  
  
Then he stopped, staring over Fury’s shoulder like a deer caught in the headlights, before looking back at Fury. The Captain knew that Rogers was trying to say something. Stark was probably, no, most likely standing behind him.     
  
Fury looked behind him and yes, Stark was there. Fury didn’t want to admit to himself, but the engineer’s appearance made his nonexistent hair stand on end. Not only that he was almost anywhere covered with blood (Sharon’s, Wanda’s, his own)...The most horrible thing was that Stark was staring at him with his eyes sewn shut, crusted blood partially covering the seams.  
  
Fury reached for his gun...But before he could fire a shot, Stark moved towards him with incredible speed and punched him right in the stomach, sending him flying across the bridge and right into a bulkhead. Then Stark picked up the nail gun, examining it with unconcealed interest.  
  
Fury slowly got to his feet, his one eye never leaving Tony’s empty ones. “What the hell happened to your eyes?”  
  
Tony cocked his head. “I don't need them anymore. Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see.”  
  
Fury narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about?”  
  
“Do you know what a singularity is, Fury?”

“My ship and my crew that you just blew up,” the bald man spat.

Stark huffed. “Sentiments. Does your mind truly fathom what a black hole is?” When no answer came from Steve and Fury, Stark continued. “It is **nothing** . Absolute and eternal **nothing** . And if there’s something like a god, who is **everything** , then I have seen the Devil.” He shot them a grimace, the grin of a dead man. “Believe me, it's a liberating experience. You should try it.”  
  
With his free hand, Tony reached for the navigation console and flipped a series of switches with his gore-caked fingers. The display on the console lit up.  
  
“Gravity drive ready for use. Do you wish to engage?” a computerized female voice asked the engineer.  
  
“What the fuck are you doing?” Fury demanded to know.  
  
Tony just grinned, turning his attention back to the station as he flips the final switch.  
  
“Gravity drive engaged. Activation in T-minus ten minutes,” the computer voice announced.  
  
Fury used the opportunity and lunged for the nail gun. But Tony was quicker. He raised the nail gun to point at Fury’s face, who slowly backed away.  
  
“If you miss me, you'll blow out the hull. You'll die too.”  
  
“What makes you think I'll miss?” Tony cackled.  
  
Fury gritted his teeth. He hated being in such a position - defenseless. Suddenly, he had to suppress a sharp inhale. He had seen something out of the corner of his eye, something incredible. Apparently, Wilson had survived his tumble into open space and made it back to the vessel, now braced outside in the viewport bracket..  
  
Tony spun and fired, not at Fury, but at Sam. The long nail buried itself in the thick quartz glass that was their only protection from the hostile environment outside. An intricate spider web of cracks spread out from the bullet, the glass shrieking shrilly under the sudden increase of pressure.  
  
Tony took a step towards the window and raised the gun anew with the intention to fire again. But before he could, the window exploded outward. Steve, breaking his bonds in a rush of adrenaline, quickly dove for the door, pulling Fury with him.

The ship itself howled, as every single bit of air rushed out and the temperature plummeted. Tony was ripped off his feet, but somehow managed to catch himself in the broken window, a long shard digging itself into Tony’s palm. Not that it’d disturb him, when he still tried to pull himself back in at this point.

Just then, one of the monitors tore free and smashed right into him. With a scream, Tony let go and was instantly sucked out into Neptune’s atmosphere.  
  
Meanwhile Steve had pulled himself through the door just as it began to shut. He was safe. But Fury was still on the other side, still clinging to a console. Steve knew he had to do something quick or Fury would suffer the same fate as Stark. The door was still shutting. Steve looked quickly around and finally saw a compressor not far away from his current position. Easily, he ripped it from its mount and wedged it in the door to keep it open. He kept  one hand on the door, while his other reached for his captain.  
  
“Give me your hand! Your hand!” he yelled.

Fury did. Frost particles formed on both their bodies as the air cooled down further. Their veins begin to bulge, blood pulsing from their noses. Steve yelled with exertion...  
  
...dragged Fury to the door...through the door...  
  
...as the compressor tore free at last, getting sucked into open space...

...and then the door snapped shut, missing them by a fraction.  
  
Steve and Fury collapsed against the door, both them breathing heavily. There was no no need for words in this moment. Both of them were just happy to be breathing and more or less alive....  
  
...until the moment was interrupted by the alert of the airlock klaxon.

“What the fuck…?” Steve swore. This couldn’t be Stark. Stark had to be dead, torn apart by the planet’s storms. Or wasn’t he…?  
  
“The forward airlock.” Fury pointed out.  
  
Both men got to their feet and raced towards the Forward Airlock Bay. When they entered the bay, they could see a humanoid shape moving in the strobing light of the airlock.  
  
“Impossible. Stark can't be alive.” Steve pointed out.  
  
Fury looked at his commander. “Whatever was on that bridge wasn't Stark.”  
  
He looked around if he could find some sort of weapon. From a toolbox, he pulled a zero-G bolt cutter from the wall and took it into both hands, wielding it like a bat. Steve also dropped into a fighting stance.  
  
The inner airlock door released with a loud hiss. It swung open… Both Fury’s and Steve’s pulses quickened when they heard footsteps coming closer. Until...  
  
Sam tumbled through, desperately clawing at his helmet.

“Oh God! Sam!” Steve rushed over to his partner, overjoyed to see him alive and in  one piece. He helped him take off his helmet and Sam greedily sucked the stale air in, before coughing it back out. Steve patted his back, telling him to breathe slower.  
  
“It’s okay, Steve. Just let me breathe, let me breathe…” the Rescue Tech tried to calm him down. “I’m okay now, it's over…”

“It's not over. It's just starting.” Fury replied, when he looked at something on the wall.  
  
Sam and Steve followed Fury’s gaze to the flashing display of a workstations there and their eyes widened in horror, when they read what was standing there. Gravity Drive engaged. Activation in 00:06:43:01...

“Shit!” they cursed in unison.

“Stark activated the drive. He's sending us to the Other Place, whatever it is,” Fury told them.

“We've got to shut it down. We've got to…” Sam trailed off when he realized what was about to happen.  
  
“How? The Bridge is gone,” Fury argued.  
  
“There must be a way! What about Engineering?” Sam pointed out. “Can we shut it down from there?”  
  
Steve held up his hands. “I don't know the process. Stark was the expert…”  
  
“I don't want to go where the last crew went. I'd rather go back outside… without my suit.”  
  
Steve sighed. “I have thought about this. We could blow the fucker up.”

Fury and Sam looked at him curiously.  
  
“Blow it up?” Fury probed. He, too, had thought about a solution to their current problem. Now he wondered, if he and Rogers had the same idea.  
  
“We blow the Corridor. We can use the foredecks as a lifeboat and separate it from the rest of the ship.” Steve explained. “We stay put here in the grav couches...  
  
“...and the gravity drive goes the fuck where no man has gone before. Again,” Sam completed.

Fury scratched his chin. He knew why Rogers was his second. Great minds think alike. He clapped his hands together. “Well, what are we waiting for. You prep the gravity couches. I'm going to manually arm those explosives.”  
  
“Will it work?” Sam asked.  
  
“It worked for Stark. Prep the tanks. I’m coming as soon as possible.”  
  
Sam nodded and headed for the gravity couch bay, while Steve followed Fury to the steel pressure door. “You don’t have to do that alone. I can help you…”  
  
Fury fixated him with his patent steely gaze. ”No. I’m the Captain and this is my responsibility… Captain. Just do as I said and I'll be right back.”

Steve pressed his lips together, but nodded finally. Fury opened the door, looking back at his second. “Close it behind me. Just in case…”  
  
Steve stared at Fury, suddenly overwhelmed by the urge to memorize his face. “Don't take too long.”  
  
Fury smiled wanly, before he turned walked outside. The door slid shut behind him with a dull thunk.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Fury ran down the corridor, only stopping at a bulkhead coupling. He knelt down to remove the cover from one of the explosive charges, who were lining up along the corridor, switching it from automatic to manual detonation.  
  
After finishing this one, Fury ran to the next coupling, repeating the process all over again...  
  
Meanwhile, Sam and Steve checked the gravity couches for functionality. One by one, they slid them open and looked if everything was alright, occasionally interrupted by a fond glance at the one tank, where Bucky was in deep sleep. His wounds looked better already. Luckily, everything was alright..  
  
“I'm gonna activate the emergency beacon. “ Sam then announced.  
  
“Okay. But hurry up. We don’t have much time left.”  
  
Sam nodded and exited down a ladder. Steve turned to the console and activated three of the gravity couches. Behind him, two began to fill with blue jelly...  
  
...and one started to fill with with a dark red liquid…

...but there was something else in it - a dark shape which seemed to moving within...  
  
Steve didn’t see that. He was busy concentrating on the console and getting their sleeping accommodations ready for use. Then he heard it. A loud thumping. As if something or someone was pounding against the glass of the tanks. He turned around slowly and his breath hitched, when he saw the bloody tank. And something was moving inside.

As he slowly crossed over to the tank, peering at it, another thump echoed through the bay, followed by a face that was staring right back at him.  
  
It was Stark, looking even more horrendous than on the bridge. He looked as he had come fresh out of a blender. His bones and muscles were exposed where the skin hadn't finished re-forming.  
  
Steve backed off with a loud “Sam!” on his lips, just in time before the tank burst into an explosion of blood, drenching Steve to the core.

  
In a corridor beneath the Gravity Couch Bay, in one of the ducts, Sam searched through circuit panels until he finally found the one for the emergency beacon breaker. He ran a bypass, activating it manually. The lights began to flash intermittently.  
  
Satisfied, he crawled back into the corridor, when something wet hit his shoulder. Frowning, he looked up, only to groan, when a splash of red hit his face. When he looked down, he grimaced at the sight of the large bloodstain spreading all over his shoulder. He followed the drip to the ceiling...  
  
“Steve?” Sam called loudly, worried that all this blood belonged to his blond partner.  
  
But he got no response. He slowly moved to peer up the ladder...  
  
...as Steve crashed down in front of his feet, bloody but alive.  
  
“What the hell...?” Sam wanted to know, as he helped Steve getting to his feet. The blond looked a little bit shocked, as only one word came out of Steve’s mouth. “Run!”  
  
Before Sam could question Steve sudden outburst, another mutilated version of Stark appeared at the top of the ladder, crawling down headfirst like a spider…

“Holy Shit!” Sam shouted and ran right after Steve.  
            
In the main corridor, Fury was almost done with the explosives. He knelt down by the last charge, removing the cover before he flipped the switch. A small cover popped open. Fury reached in and removed a radio detonator. By pressing a button, he armed the explosives and watched with satisfaction as the red lights on the explosives flickered on in the darkness.  
  
Only then, he reached for an intercom. “We're armed. This fucker's ready to blow…”  
  
In the generic corridor on the foredeck, Fury’s voice could be heard loud and clear.

 

“ _...repeat, we're armed…_ ”  
  
Steve touched the nearest intercom, shouting in it, while Sam, who was next to him, tried to catch his breath. “Fury, he's back. He was in one of the tanks…”

“Whoa. Slow down, Rogers. I can't understand You. Who was in the tank?” Fury asked in confusion, while his hand gripped the detonator.

 _A figure coalesced from the shadows behind Fury._  
  
“ _You have to get back here now. He's out there now. If he finds you…_ ” Steve’s panicky voice still rang though the main access corridor.  
  
_The figure moved forward into the light...It was Tony. Arcane runes were etched on his face; his eyes, now restored, blazed with unholy zeal. Stark looked like an unholy deity come into human flesh._  
  
“Who? Who’s back?”  
  
“ _Stark_ .”  
  
“Rogers, he's dead…” Fury argued, his single eye suddenly darting glances over his shoulder. His jaw dropped in surprise as he saw Tony grinning at him...before the engineer smashed the intercom in his fist, cutting off Rogers’ voice.  
  
Fury backed away, his eye never leaving the newly restored Stark.  
  
“You're dead, I saw you die.” Fury’s voice wavered with disbelief.  
  
“Stark is dead.” Tony, or whoever was standing in front of him, declared.  
  
“Then who the fuck are you?”  
  
The creature moved closer, until Fury could feel his icy breath on his skin.

“Your worst nightmare. Do you remember the _Triskelion_ , Fury?”  
  
Before Fury was able to answer, because of course he remembered the Triskelion, flames began to spread all over Tony’s body, transforming him into the burning man from Medical and the Core Room.  
  
“Do you remember me?” the burning man hissed.  
  
“Coulson. Phil Coulson,” Fur answered.

The burning man pounded one of his hands against the wall, only centimetres away from Fury’s head, leaving a black scorch mark.  
  
“You left me behind,” he hissed furiously.  
  
“You know that's not true…”  
  
“I begged you. I begged you to save me, and you did _nothing!_ You just stood there and watched me burn alive!”  
  
Fury closed his eye. This was just an imagination of his. Nothing was real. ”SHUT UP! SHUT UP!”  
  
The Burning Man yelled and raised his arm in accusation...

Fire raced out from behind him, flowing all over the walls, the ceiling, the floor, lunging for Fury like a rising tide.

Fury did the only thing he could. He ran. He ran dead ahead into the First Containment, the  fire flooding in behind him.  
  
He dashed for the Second Seal just as it began to close. The fire gained speed on him, surrounded him. Fury dove through the Second Seal, barely making it through, only to slam into the engineering console with a painful grunt.  
  
Breathing heavily, Fury looked back at the Second Seal. It was still open by a fraction when the fire hit it...  
  
...sending a lance of flame stabbing out towards the Captain. He rolled aside exactly in the moment as the fire spear hit the console.

The console exploded in a spectacular fashion.  
  
At the same time, the Second Seal finally shut tight, finally cutting the fire off. The paint on the Second Seal began to bubble and scorch, only to cool as the fire subsided.  
  
Fury got to his feet and almost allowed himself to relax for a moment. Then he saw his shadow before him, dancing in the growing red light. He turned around and saw...  
  
The Second Containment was a blazing inferno. Fire swarmed over the walls. Burning jelly dripped from the Control Spikes. The Core itself was a blazing orb; the gyroscope which held it glowed red-hot.

A Black Hole Sun.  
  
Fury stared in amazement at the blazing Core.  
  
“Don't leave me!” the burning man wailed. Fury turned on his heels, only to find the burning man standing right beside him.  
  
He backhanded Fury; his clothes ignited and he flew backward into the pond around the Core. The detonator fell from Fury’s grasp, lost beneath over half a metre of coolant. Fury himself came back up choking and spluttering.  
  
The burning man stalked towards Fury, the coolant steaming and and sizzling at his feet. Fury stared at him as he approached. Then, he slowly rose to his feet.  
  
“You're not Phil Coulson.”  
  
The burning man's flames waned, finally revealing _Stark’s_ misshapen form.  
  
Fury threw a wicked right hook. The creature posing as _Tony_ caught Fury's fist easily, then squeezed it until blood welled up between his fingers. Then, he slung Fury against a cooling tank with bone crushing force. Fury collapsed right into the slime, barely able to raise his head to breathe.  
  
_Tony_ slowly approached him.  
  
“What are you?” Fury wanted to know.

“You know what I am.”  
  
“You really want me to believe you're the Devil or some shit? Too bad, I don't, because that's bullshit!”  
  
“I'm not the Devil.”  
  
“Then what? What the hell are you? Tell me…”  
  
_Tony_ cocked his head. “Better if I just show you.”  
  
His hands reached down and grabbed Fury by his skull. Fury gasped as a series of visions invaded his mind, faster than the eye could see. And more than the mind could process...  
  
_He saw the original crew writhing naked and bloody in a carnivorous frenzy..._  
  
_...Wanda’s bloody body, her grinning brother over her, devouring his little sister..._  
  
Fury writhed in _Tony’s_ grip, his body automatically looking for a way out. His hands flailed out to the sides. One hand brushed a long steel canister, which was sunk in the muck. A carbon dioxide scrubber.  
  
_...Fury saw Sharon's dissected body, except that Sharon looked up and smiled at him.._ .  
  
_...he saw an alien sun, red and bloated and dying with an alien planet orbiting around it; the planet was a sluggish, oily, black sea. A hand reached up from the oil..._  
  
_...clawed its way out of Pepper’s belly, covered with the thick black fluid..._ _  
_ _  
_ _...he saw Barnes, Rogers and Wilson, crucified upside-down upon the Third Seal..._  
  
“NOOO!” Fury screamed. His hand closed around the scrubber and he swang it with full strength across the being’s head. _Stark_ reeled back, stunned.  
  
Fury got to his feet. “No, you can't have them! I won’t let you!”  
  
He hit _Tony_ again. Hard. Blood gushed from Tony’s skull, filling the runes on his face.  
  
_Tony_ staggered. Fury attacked. Again and again and again.  
  
But this time, _Tony_ was prepared for Fury’s attack. He caught the scrubber and tore it  from Fury’s grasp. Then, he smashed Fury to the floor with a single blow. The Captain groaned.  
  
“I'm not the Devil. I'm much, much older. I watched the Beginning and I will see the End. I am the dark behind the stars. I am the dark inside you all,” _Tony_ recited.  
  
Fury got to all fours, trying to get up. “ _...not the Devil…_ ” he gasped.  
  
_Tony_ kicked Fury savagely. Fury slid through the coolant and came to a halt beneath a walkway. He attempted to rise, but collapsed back into the sludge.  
  
_Tony_ slowly stalked towards him. “There is no Devil. There is no God. There is only… nothing.”  
  
“You're lying!” Fury spat.  
  
_Tony_ looked down at the bloody mess that was Fury. “I'm not asking you to believe me. You'll see for yourself… and so will your crew. You're all coming with me.”

“Wilson… Rogers…” Fury whispered, wincing when he felt _Tony’s_ icy breath on his hot skin again. The engineer’s grotesque face was only centimetres away from his.

He reached down and pulled Fury from the dripping ooze. “They are mine. And so are you…”  
  
But his face fell, when Fury cleared the surface, holding something in his fist. The Captain stared dead-on into _Tony’s_ hellish face...  
  
...and raised his right hand, holding the detonator. Fury had a grim, but bloody smile of triumph on his face. “You can't have them. Go to hell.”  
  
“NOOO!” _Tony_ screamed.

Fury activated the detonator.  


A small, silent explosion blossomed in the aft section of the ship...  
  
...followed seconds later by a sequence of detonations that ripped the Main Access Corridor apart and propelled the foredecks away from the containment section.

In the corridor below the gravity couch bay, the sudden explosion knocked Steve and Sam down.

“What the hell is going on?” Sam shouted over the noise.

“Fury must have set off the explosives.” Steve answered, his heart heavy all of a sudden. Probably because Fury hadn’t come back, after their conversation had abruptly ended. Stark must have gotten to him - a last victim of the _Event Horizon_.

Sam didn’t need to ask further what had happened. Steve’s feelings told him everything he needed to know.

They held on tightly as waves of distortion rippled over the _Event Horizon_ 's containment section…

  
  
Within the former Core Room, a dark sphere of energy spread out from the containment as the gateway opened.

A black hole...  
  
The black hole began to shrink, started imploding. As it collapsed, it sucked a great part of Neptune's blue clouds with it, creating a Titanic-like whirlpool with the black hole at its center.  
  
The shrieking winds carried the foredecks back towards the whirlpool and towards the black hole...

Inside the Corridor, Steve and Sam slid across the floor as the deck tipped at a terrific angle...

The foredecks teetered on the edge of the point of no return, as...  
  
The black hole collapsed utterly, vanishing to a single point. An enormous shockwave ripped out from the point of implosion. The foredecks rode on the wave away from the implosion and out of Neptune's atmosphere to safety.  
  
The vibrations subsided. Steve and Sam all but staggered to their feet and looked out the window, getting a bittersweet, wonderful view of Neptune and some of his moons.

“And what do we do now?” Sam asked Steve, their hands joining in a desperate sudden need for comfort.

The blond looked up at Bucky’s sleeping figure in the tank and then back to Sam. “We go home.” They had almost lost everything on this fateful mission, but at least they had still each other.

Sam nodded, before they took one last glance at the newly receded Neptune, the ugly hole of the implosion already being erased by Neptune's violent winds…

“Wherever that is now.”

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪


	19. Epilogue - Singularity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sixty days later...

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Wakandan Ceres Station, Asteroid Belt.

Sixty days later.

  
Scott was bored.

Again.

It wasn’t that he didn’t love his job. Because he really did. It was only because the whole station had been on constant alert for over sixty days, ever since Bast 1, Wakanda’s orbital deep space telescope, had recorded a huge explosion on Neptune, followed by the appearance of a dark spot that disappeared moments later.

Since the _Singularity_ had been on a mission there, everyone was worried that the vessel had been caught up in the crossfire. So, everyone’s vacation had been cancelled for the time being, at least until the fate of the _Singularity_ was cleared up.

Fucking great.

Well, at least Hope was here this time, currently introducing their new guy Parker to the Station’s modus operandi. She was Fury’s proxy for those times when he wasn’t there.

So, Scott was still bored while listening to Hope’s instructions and Peter’s excited  and nervous _yes ma’ams_. Boy, had he ever been like this? Probably not. But then, it’d been ten years since his first day on the station and he didn’t remember much from his first night in here thanks to copious amounts of alcohol.

A faint beeping caught his attention and a sudden déjà vu overcame him. Seventy days ago, the whole shitshow with the _Singularity_ had also started with a beeping. His eyes travelled over to his workstation and he eyed the signal with suspicion. Sighing, he finally wheeled over and activated his keyboard. To his surprise, the signal was not that far away, pretty close actually. And it was from the _Event Horizon_. Again. Fuck.

“Miss van Dyne, I got an incoming emergency signal,” Scott said over his shoulder, hating being so formal during work. “It’s from the _Event Horizon_ ,” he added after a pause, just for the dramatic effect.

Hope looked up and narrowed her eyes at Scott. “That’s not funny, Mr. Lang.”

Scott rolled his eyes. “I know, because it’s the truth. Why don’t you see for yourself?” He gestured towards his holographic screen. The brunette looked suspiciously at her partner, before she excused herself and walked over to Scott. To her surprise, he hadn’t been joking. The signal was really from the notorious vessel.

“Distance?” she asked him.

“Not far. A two-hour flight with the _Pym_.”

Hope considered all options, before she made a decision. “Suit up and take Parker with you. I’ll inform His Highness.”

Scott whooped with joy. Finally some action. He grabbed Parker and pulled up from his seat. “Come on, kid. This is going to get good.”

Peter didn’t look convinced. “If you say so, Sir.”

Scott resisted the urge to roll his eyes again before he dragged the kid to the hangar.

 

Barely fifteen minutes later, the _Pym_ was on her way to the coordinates. Contrary to popular belief, it was relatively easy to navigate through the Asteroid Belt. Every single object was actually millions of kilometres apart from each other and not just a few. Two objects would, on rare occasions, collide with each other before bouncing off into different directions.

Peter was the first to spot what had remained from the Event Horizon. “Holy Shit, is that thing big… and... improvable, design-wise.”

“Just say it with me, Parker,” Scott laughed. “That thing is butt-ugly.”

“Okay, it is.”

“Good boy.”

Both had already changed into their EVA suits before leaving Ceres Station. While Scott looked for an airlock on  the darkened ship, Peter checked the other ship for signs of life. “I’m getting three signals. There must be survivors on board.”

Scott nodded. He had finally found a place to dock and initiated the docking sequence. Five minutes later, they were ready to board. Carefully, they entered the dark vessel, heading for the foredecks, their flashlights showing them the way. As soon as they entered the gravity couch bay, Scott let out a gasp as he saw the three figures floating in the blue jelly.

“Oh god. That’s Commander Rogers, Ensign Barnes and Lt. Wilson. But where are the others?” he exclaimed, his eyes searching for the rest of the crew. At Peter’s questioning gaze, he explained the details to him. “They are from the crew of our missing ship. But still...where are the others.”

Scott looked through the whole room, but couldn’t find anyone else. “That’s strange.“ he muttered to himself, before he turned to Peter. “Could you please start the de-thawing process? I think there is much to clarify. I’ll go and inform HQ.”

Peter nodded and got to work.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

_Bucky was standing in the Core Room of the Event Horizon. He was staring at the giant red ball of plasma through the activated Core whose singularity acted as a window. It was surrounded by four small blackened planets and four bigger ones, orbiting around the dying star._

_He looked down and at the bloody bodies of his family, arranged in a disk-like circle around the sphere, their eyes open and staring back at him. As if asking him what the hell he was waiting for._

_‘Come on. We’re waiting for you, Bucky-Bear!’ Sam cajoled._

_‘Don’t worry, Buck. We’re with you until the end of the line!’ Steve promised._

_Bucky, come on. It’s going to be fun.’ Sharon and Wanda cooed._

_‘Man up, James. We don’t have all eternity to wait for you.” Natasha rolled her eyes._

_‘What she said!’ Clint pointed out._

_‘Barnes, come over.’ Fury ordered._

_Bucky just stared ahead. Watched as they drifted further towards the central star. He could already feel the heat rising with every passing second. The surface of the star bubbled and sizzled, already brewing the ingredients for what would one day become a diamond in space._

_Bucky stretched out his metal arm, literally touching it. It was so beautiful. The warmth was so nice. He’d stay here with his family and become a part of this diamond._

_He didn’t scream, when his arm melted. He didn’t scream when the swirls of hot plasma engulfed them all, turning them all into stardust._

_He only screamed when the warmth was gone and cold was all that was left._

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

Bucky woke up with a loud scream and fell onto the wet floor.

Soft hands, caring hands held him steady as a gravity blanket was lowered on him, keeping him so preciously warm.

Voices, two strange ones and two trusted ones, tried to calm him down. It was only when he realized Stevie and Sammy were talking in gentle voices to him that his breathing slowed down.

It had just been a dream. No one was dead. Although he still could feel traces of the darkness lingering within him, he didn’t care.

Stevie and Sammy were still with him.

He was safe.

✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪✪♆✪♆✪♆✪

**Author's Note:**

> Come and join me on [Tumblr](https://terrenis.tumblr.com).


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